Call of the Raven
by Kaiorven
Summary: By choosing Ahiru over Piqué as first target for sacrifice, a prince drastically changes the story's path, and a knight will bear the backlash. As a princess finds her saving grace; another will fall to the darkness. Accepting fate hardly brings happiness while defying fate may not always grant glory. Finding the happy ending? That is the hardest part of them all. Eventual Fakiru.
1. Akt I Pflicht I

Disclaimer: If I owned Princess Tutu, there would be a third season, no questions asked.

This is a fic that vaguely (very vaguely) resembles the popular want-of-a-nail structure in other fandoms. Interestingly enough, this type of fic is not particularly popular in the PT fandom –or at least, not written often, as far as I can tell.

However, this is only loosely an AU divergence fic. I will be incorporating other changes and fleshing out parts where the canon is sketchy for plot purposes and such. It'll follow the canon in the beginning, but it will diverge pretty fast.

This story is currently unbetaed. If you like the concept and would be interested in beta-ing, drop me a PM. I'd appreciate it.

Warning (updated): While the eventual pairing will be Fakir/Ahiru, there is no accounting for what will happen in the middle. ;)

Otherwise, I hope you enjoy this story.

* * *

**Once upon a time, there was a woman who died. Her husband, whom loved her very much, sought to resurrect her, and thus used a strange and forbidden power. It succeeded, and the man was delighted.**

******However, as** day by day passed, it became evident that his wife was no longer the woman he fell in love with, for while her body was healthy and intact, her pure soul was tainted with death, and her heart, no matter what he did, refused to beat. The woman he loved became a twisted caricature of herself, evil and angry, hungering for the lives of others, jealous of those whom lived, for she herself was only half alive.

**Driven mad by anger and grief, he tried to kill her, but found that she was unable to die, cursed to remain alive forever. For the second time in his life, he picked up his pen, and erased her tortured soul from this world, and by purging all her emotions, turned her into a living doll.**

**Her story, forever incomplete, was eventually segued into another; and they say her soul still haunts the netherworld, seeking but being forever denied death.**

**This is not her story, not at all. And yet, had this tale remained unwritten, many other tales, like this one, perhaps, would not have been spun. Did the man do the right thing, in stopping his wife? For although he stopped that impending tragedy, from that still unfinished tale, many, many other tragedies were born.**

* * *

Fakir gritted his teeth in the office. Mytho stood beside him, calm and serene, as tame and fair as he had been before Tutu- well, Ahiru, had restored the heart shard of love to him, Mr Cat stared down at them in stony silence, waiting for one to speak before the other.

Why? Why had Mytho shifted the way he had? Why had he leapt out of the window, when most, if not all of the wandering heart shards had been restored to him? Had he not regained the heart shard of fear, then?

He shook his head. Now was not the time for doubting. Had he not seen and felt Mytho, frightened and desperate and afraid, clinging to him, speaking the name of Princess Tutu, not in adoration, hope or love, but in fear?

"So tell me," said Mr Cat, visibly losing patience as he continued stitching together the shoe that he held. "What happened?"

"Didn't you see?" asked Mytho, his voice innocent, almost caressing. But there was an undertone that Fakir had never heard in his friend, something ominous, twisted, darkly seductive and very, very, wrong.

"I'd rather hear you explain to me what happened." Mr Cat raised gleaming eyes to the pair, though his ears pressed flat against his skull and his usual comical hiss he emitted was no longer so comical, but threatening. "After all, unfortunate things have just been happening more often lately, haven't they?"

Fakir swallowed as he saw the pair of shoes Mr Cat held. Satin and silk dangled in slashed ribbons around his paws. The corner of Mytho's lip curved into the flicker of a smirk.

Fakir finally decided to deny, when Mytho said softly, "Oh, no, Mr Cat. You mustn't blame Fakir. The truth is," here, his head dropped, and is expression turned serious with mock gravity.

"I jumped out of the window myself. The fresh air, the sunshine, all the pretty girls… you should try it sometime." His tone balanced sarcasm and earnest desire to please on a knife edge.

Fakir would have applauded him on finally gaining, it seemed, a sense of humour, if an utterly creepy and inappropriate one, if his statement hadn't made Fakir himself seem violent, unstable and vindictive -wait, pretty girls?

"I thought you and Miss Rue were together," said Mr Cat, in an almost chiding tone – if nothing else, even if he threatened girls with marriage like other teachers threatened students with detention, at least he would have been faithful to whatever poor girl eventually cracked and caved. His gaze flew between the boys, and something similar to comprehension dawned on his face.

"I would have thought you were too young for that problem," muttered Mr Cat. "Certainly Rue is beautiful and skilled, but –"

_He thought –he really thought –_ Fakir wasn't sure whether to burst out laughing or recoil in disgust. If he had to fight with Mytho over something, it certainly wouldn't be something as inconsequential as a girl, and if they did end up fighting over a girl, it certainly wouldn't be over a crow.

…or a duck.

"Fakir, I realise that this must be a difficult for you but sometimes you must accept that you cannot have the one you love–" Mytho squeezed his eyes shut; various expressions, no, various emotions, flitting across his face.

It was though he were trying to clamp down on them, squeeze them out, crush them. Or were they trying to escape, flitting across his face and pounding on the edges of his heart, his soul? Finally, the emotion that won out was twisted amusement, carefully hidden behind the meek downtilt of his head.

"That wasn't the issue," Fakir said stiffly. There are several other responses that come to mind –a biting comment that Mr Cat should ask Mytho who really destroyed his toe shoes, for one, but Fakir was nothing but a loyal knight.

Even if his prince was corrupted. He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"Rue has nothing to do with –" He stopped. Kraehe might have, but that was neither here nor there. Silence, clouded with the air of disbelief, filled the room.

"Either way, I cannot allow this to continue." Mr Cat placated as he eyed the two students in front of him.

Fakir had enough of this farce. But if Mytho was playing some game, some sick twisted game, Fakir wouldn't let him the satisfaction of winning. "Fine. I'll leave." He drew himself up, felt the cold mask of utter contempt slide onto his face without even a clang, and strode to the door.

"Aaahhh!" The pile of girls falling on the floor nearly made him lose all composure, but instead he looked straight ahead, irresolutely refusing to acknowledge their presence except a slight pause of silent disgust before stepping away.

Even Ahiru had been more bearable than this. Perhaps he had been valuing her too low, or perhaps he just hadn't seen the relative competition. Was it unnatural that the only girl he could bear turned out to be intricately linked to the story of the Prince and the Raven?

Another face, faded and worn in his memories flickered forward. If Raetsel returned to be another transforming ballerina princess, he would let himself get slashed in half, Raven or no Raven.

* * *

Unbeknownst to him, a duck waited by the edges of the door, along with other silent but excited girls. Already, looks were being exchanged over Mr Cat's statement.

"A love triangle!" one girl whispered excitedly, elbowing another girl.

"Rue gets everything! Amazing dancing skills, perfect schoolwork – she's even got the two best danseurs after her!" Another girl, whom she didn't recognise.

"I hope they end up fighting over her like Albrecht and Hilarion fight over Giselle!" Definitely Lilie, high-pitched and breathlessly excited, hands clasped together, eyes twinkling.

Fakir and Mytho, fighting over Rue? Now that was really unlikely. Mytho loving Rue, she could imagine, ever since they had danced together at the Night of the Fire Festival, but Fakir, with his stubbornness, combined with Rue's indomitability… besides, Fakir would never push Mytho out of the window – over any girl! He wouldn't.

He certainly didn't seem to have any trouble locking the prince up in a cupboard before. But he'd changed since then. He'd become an ally, and a friend. And whatever Fakir did, it was because he thought it helped Mytho.

She glanced in to see Mytho standing by the window. Should she go in?

However something – doubt, perhaps, pulled her away from Mr Cat's classroom and in line behind Fakir as he strode from the room. A quick change later, she confronted him outside his room.

"Did something happen with Mytho?" she asked, when she had returned. At Fakir's silence, she wrung her hands and continued.

"I mean, he – he made it sound like he was covering for you, and I think that Mr Cat's shoes – but I'm not sure, and –" Fakir continued packing, shoving clothes and other things into a suitcase.

"I don't know what it means, yet. But I will."

Ahiru couldn't help but glance around the room. He possessed no personal things, like the lamp she'd saved, her duck pillow, and the poster of Sleeping Beauty she had on a wall. Neither did Mytho. The neatness fully showed off the luxury of his rooms, but it barely seemed lived in.

Unbidden, an image of Mytho and Fakir crossing swords over Rue rose to the forefront of her mind.

"I'll help you pack," she said, breaking the silence. Fakir hefted both suitcases, as Ahiru attempted to tug one off of him, her two hands pulling against his one. She huffed, blowing strands of hair from her face. "Just let me help you!"

The door clicked open.

"Fakir," Mytho said, softly having padded into the room with a light step. He inclined his head, in some measure of surprise. "Ahiru." Beside her, she felt Fakir tensing.

"Hello, Mytho," said Ahiru, forcing cheer into her voice, while both of them started a stare off. "Are you feeling better now?" The stare off continued, and a thin sheen of sweat formed on her brow as she watched the two. "You know, from when you –" jumped " –fell?"

"Much," said Mytho at last. His manner was neutral, inoffensive, but there was an odd gleam in his eye that Ahiru couldn't puzzle out.

Suddenly a feeling of dazed affection, of devotion born from something unidentifiable and foreign filled her. Ahiru felt like the girl in the practise room three months ago, half dazed and awkward at the sight of him; her eyes drawn to his smile as though it were flickering candlelight in a dark room.

"How's Rue?"

"Why don't you ask Fakir?" his voice was still kind, warm and honey sweet, slowly filling her from her toes up with a pleasant sensation, but his words – they weren't right – and suddenly it was broken, and he was Mytho again, not a spell woven into the very air.

In spite of herself, she jutted her chin out, remembering him in Mr Cat's office. The weight of Fakir's suitcase grounded her from the strange, dizzying sensation of glancing upon Mytho.

"Enough," Fakir jerked his head. Ahiru fisted her hands but nevertheless fell silent at the unspoken command. "Mytho, what's happened to you?"

"Apart from falling from a window and being caught by –" Mytho's gaze flickered to Ahiru – he didn't know she was Princess Tutu, did he – "pure chance? Nothing of note."

The following half-awkward, half-menacing silence was broken by Fakir. "Follow me," he commanded Ahiru with a scowl, jerking his head away from Mytho. "My new rooms are a few corridors along."

But as they moved to the doorway, Mytho stepped forward and placed his hand on Ahiru's shoulder. "Won't you keep me company, Ahiru?" he asked, his smile soft and voice gentle, presence magnetic.

Ahiru had felt giddy, nervous, happy, anxious, and in love with him many times before, and yet, this was different. The pull was like the sensation from before. Her heart sped up, whether from panic or attraction she did not know. She had to help… should help Fakir… but it wouldn't hurt to join Mytho, would it?

She felt a hand grasp her wrist, rough and callused but warm. It was only when she had been dragged out of the room that the connection faltered, broke, and it was like being doused by cold water.

"What happened in there?" demanded Fakir, jerking her further away from the room in emphasis. Ahiru turned away, her voice now a mumble. They continued down the corridors, her feet squeaking against the floorboards.

"I'm not sure." She barely noticed as Fakir took the second suitcase from her arms and turned to glare at her.

"How could you not know? You just froze up after Mytho said all of two words to you. It was like you were in a trance!" his scolding tone disguised genuine fear.

Ahiru stared at her feet for a long moment, then said softly, "I really don't know what happened. I mean, I've been nervous and stuff in front of him before, but I felt –"

"Did he do something to you?" asked Fakir, voice, low and urgent as he pushed open the door to his new rooms, which were, if anything, larger than his previous dorm with Mytho. Ahiru couldn't help but envy the luxuries granted to the older, advanced class students.

"Not that I could sense," admitted Ahiru. "I felt – attracted to him."

Fakir snorted as he set down the two suitcases with a thump, worry receding into exasperation. "Tell me something I don't know, idiot."

Ahiru felt herself gape. The surrealism of Fakir practically (sort of – almost – not really, actually) teasing her on her crush on Mytho broke her train of thought. "It wasn't like that!" Ahiru waved her hands frantically in front of her, face heating up so that it practically glowed. "I mean, it was, but it was different, you know?"

She'd never complain about her friends ever teasing her about Mytho ever again, this was at least a hundred times more awkward.

"Oh?" Fakir managed to push into that one syllable more torture than Lilie had ever subjected her to.

"It was like – magnetism. Hypnotism. Normally when I think of Mytho –" cue a cough, "anyway, it felt strange, as if – as if he could tell me to do anything, and I'd do it."

"You would."

" –because all that I saw was him, all that mattered was him. When you grabbed my hand, I didn't even recognise it was you, and when I got out of the door – it was like a spell being broken, like a cold shock, and I could think again."

Fakir opened the small suitcase, as she continued. Absently, she opened his other one, helping him unpack his shoes, ballet and otherwise, and a single sheathed sword.

"Not that you think very much in the first place, moron." Fakir didn't even look up from his unpacking. "Though I thought you had gotten past the point where you froze up if he so much as uttered a syllable to you."

"Hey!" Ahiru folded her arms, pouted. "You're a mean person, you know that right?"

"You've danced in front of him as Princess Tutu," he said, ignoring the byplay, "So you shouldn't be so nervous with him as Ahiru." His voice held something strange, something she couldn't quite identify.

"I'm telling you again, it wasn't like that," protested Ahiru, but the argument felt weak, now that the feeling was gone. Outside, a bird chirped through the open window. "And it's none of your business, anyway," she added in a lower voice.

"It is my business, especially since something seems to have happened with Mytho." Fakir looked away, folding his clothes and stacking them in a neat pile, where they had been haphazardly shoved into the suitcase before. "It's my duty to protect you both now." He glanced up at her, briefly. "You should go back to your room. Your gossiping friends might be worried by now."

Ahiru lightly thwacked her hand against his shoulder. "See you too, jerk."

* * *

He could feel it, even now, itching, the urge to possess and defile strong and fierce in his heart. He heard their hushed voices, felt their presences moving outside the door. His knight and Ahiru – the innocent girl whose face he often saw around the grounds.

_So the useless Knight has finally realised something was up, not that he has a clue,_ the voice whispered. _And that girl with him, fascinating. She was able to resist the Call of the Raven._

Mytho shuddered, clutched one hand over his chest. His own heart seethed with heat, his chest burning his cool fingertips. He had never felt so sick before, had never fallen ill in his entire life. And yet, inexperienced as he was with categorising and dissecting human sensation, he knew that this was no sickness – all there seemed to be was heat and hunger boiling deep inside him, malice and fury bubbling to the surface of his heart where there should be none.

_Who are you? _Mytho demanded. Inside, he felt the Raven take flight.

_I am the part of you that you never had the courage to face_, the voice told him. _I am the part of you left buried and forgotten, awakened again by the Raven._

And just like that, the presences vanished, the Knight-who-was-slashed-in-half leaving the girl with the fire-red hair in the corridor open and easy prey. Her heart was perhaps one of the purest of all – innocent and sweet with a dash of unbreakable tenacity.

The voice whispered to him, _Don't you want to taste her heart?_

Mytho's feet curled and uncurled, toes digging into the plush carpet, fingers clutching at the edges of his seat. It had become harder and harder to suppress the other-him that whispered sins in his head. Now he had to fight for every scrap of control, as the other him steadily eclipsed him in dominance.

Before, the other him had only asserted control when he was distracted or upset. Now, even with his full focus and concentration, his grip over himself loosened, weakened. In spite of himself, he crossed to the door, tasting defeat and victory in one breath.

With some relief and some disappointment, he noted that the girl with the red hair was gone. He did not know where his feet were carrying him by that point, so consumed was he by the near constant struggle for himself.

He, as the Prince of the Story, had the role to protect. He was the prince that loved everyone and everything, the prince whom fought for those too weak to fight for themselves.

_And as the Prince, their role is to serve you, to give you all their love in return,_ the voice said slyly.

He barely heard the sound of running steps and panting breath, instead being jerked to full wakefulness as someone crashed into him. His back impacted the grass with a crunch.

"I'm sorry!" gasped the purple-haired girl. Her bag lay on the floor, books scattered on the green grass. Mytho felt a ripple of anger stir, too sharp to be warranted for the accident. What was he becoming?

"It's fine," he said instead, his face curving into a picture-perfect smile that nevertheless felt forced and fake on his cheeks. He dutifully scooped her books up from the grass and handed them back to her in a neat stack. "I should have been watching where I was going anyway."

"You're too self-sacrificing, Mytho," said the girl, not chiding, but not admiring either.

Silence followed. "Am I?" he remembered emotions, twisted and ugly, bursting from his heart like a raven taking flight. "And your name is?"

"Pique." The girl pursed her lips, roughly shoving the books back into her bag. "It's not that I don't get why you'd cover for your oldest friend. But you might get hurt – you might –" Worry and fear tinged her voice, "–You might never be able to dance again." And then he felt it. A concern that was not his, a fierce sympathy, and a fear – a fear for him, not from him, but for him nevertheless.

_Interesting,_ the voice whispered to him, and he felt the soft twinge, in the pit of his stomach, that signalled the call.

It was a call to weakness, a call to secret fears and shames rooted in the heart, a call to desperate desires, unbidden instinct, and the base needs that a person might hold. It inspired attraction – but more than that, it inspired dependency. Raven's blood was a siren song, a promised balm for suffering, the offering of false hope to combat despair.

"I appreciate your sympathy, Pique." She stared at him, and she gained that glazed, almost hypnotised look that he had recognised in Ahiru's own face. Except that in Ahiru's eyes, her expression, there had been an answering flicker of resistance.

Ahiru, true to her heart, had fought back against the call, either consciously or unconsciously with a strength that belied her stature, clumsiness, and poor dancing skills. Pique, on the other hand, crumbled beneath the influence of the Raven's blood. Already he could feel it, her heart, kind, steadfast and loyal already being swayed by sympathy, pity and misguided belief while the Call worked deeper into her heart.

"Mytho, I –"

It was too easy, he realised in horror and sick triumph. Briefly, he managed to gain full control again. "I have my full faith in Fakir," was all he managed. He swallowed – why was he nervous upon telling the truth? "And besides, I jumped from the window myself."

Perhaps that would break the hold he had over her, that the call had over her. Ahiru would make a better target – that, both halves of him were agreement in. Half of him wanted to target someone less susceptible, lest he actually succeed – and the other half wanted the thrill of watching an indomitable spirit crumble.

Pique watched silently, half in shock, half in disbelief, as the prince of both the academy, and the story, left her and her heart behind.

* * *

"Why not her, Kraehe?" Mytho smiled at the elegant raven girl, whom was quietly inspecting herself in the mirror.

His smile had a bit more edge than she would have liked, and when he grabbed her wrist, his fingers were tensed, the nails lightly digging in, like claws. The claws of the crows Father sent after her when she was misbehaving.

"I told you," replied the girl, her voice trembling. "F-father- he said that Tu- Ahiru, was not to be harmed." Rue pulled her wrist from his grasp, trying to ignore the way the skin ached, bruises threatening to form. She'd nearly let slip Tutu's identity.

"But why not? After all, she has the most delicious scent of them all," Mytho licked his lips. "Her blood is fragrant. Mingled with the raven's blood, I'm sure she'd please your father." He leaned in close then, charismatic and attractive, but somehow, though he kissed at her neck, she could taste fear, not pleasure, building in the back of her throat.

She did not let her shivers show, but she could feel her pulse, fast and erratic in her ears, her blood surging, speeding through her veins.

Mytho, of course, had no such problem. His heartbeat was unsteady and thready, barely there, sometimes fading to nothingness all together. The blood in his veins were slow in their movement, powered only by the magic that spun through Kinkan Town, unobtrusively draped like a cobweb.

"Please, no, Mytho," Rue tried not to beg, even as Mytho continued kissing, found the point on her neck that pulsed with her heart. He sucked at it, biting, scraping his teeth across it but not quite breaking the flesh. After all, Kraehe was useful to him… at the moment.

"How about the purple haired girl that you mentioned to me?" Rue tried to focus. "Pique? She'd be a far better choice for a sacrifice." And not one likely to get her killed by her own father, whom, for an inexplicable reason, wanted Tutu to be alive rather than dead.

"Mm," said Mytho noncommittally, enjoying the way goosebumps ran across Kraehe's flesh, enjoying her hunted, trapped state beneath his jaws, the flesh of her skin so unlike a raven, yet so flawless by human terms. His fingers went to stroke her collarbone and shoulder.

"It is true the other girl has potential," he allowed, noting the way Kraehe sank… in relief?

"Of course," said Kraehe, and there was an almost haughty way in which she squared her shoulders, despite his ministrations.

Mytho felt an almost surge of something he'd only recently discovered. Anger. Well, not quite, he allowed, as the emotion simmered. Certainly some of it was anger. Another part of it was, well, hm. He quietly, almost clinically, assessed the emotion, which was somewhat foreign, if he had to be honest. Foreign. Something wasn't quite right.

He felt it then, the struggling tightness in the chest, the sensation of different emotions within his heart all battling to be heard. Suddenly, in the room, his lips on Kraehe- no- no, that wasn't right, not Kraehe- Rue- but Rue was Kraehe, wasn't it?

Suddenly feeling something akin to shame but not quite shame, for he did not yet know pride, so shame- shame was fully beyond his grasp. But something resounded in his heart, beyond the call of the raven's blood thundering through his veins, where his own blood was slow and sluggish in its course, long used to the slow trickling path through his not-quite-alive but definitely-not-dead body.

He should not be doing such things. He should not be enjoying the way she shivered, whether in fear or something else, he did not know. This was wrong. So with an increasing sense of clarity, Mytho, the prince whom loved everyone and everything and was loved by everyone and everything, released his captive raven.

No, not raven. Rue. The girl whom he- what was she to him again-

"Ahiru is out of the option," said Rue, more confident, now that Mytho had stopped his relentless assault on her neck, examining the increasingly purpling bruise, with what she hoped looked like careless disdain, but was really a sort of a horror too numb to feel. Something, somewhere in Mytho, tore, snapped, splintered. Splintered was the right word- painful and angry and this wasn't him _whatwaswrongwithhimthiswasRueRUErue-_

"Oh?" said Mytho, his eyes flaring back to Kraehe, raven's blood pulsing loudly in his veins. Something was screaming loudly in him, but he ignored it. And there it was. The urge to dominate, to possess, to control- to watch as she cowered uselessly in fear- having this ridiculous, arrogant, haughty girl broken and serving him- "Well, you see, I never settle for less than the best." Mytho allowed, pinning Kraehe with his gaze. "And Ahiru- that clumsy little girl has the purest heart of them all."

"Well- yes, maybe- but- you mustn't! Father would-" She was slammed into the wall with a sickening crack, the sound resounding and echoing throughout the room. "Tell me Kraehe, do you serve your Father, or do you serve me?"

His grip was tight on her shoulders, and Rue- no, Kraehe, winced, and looked back into his eyes, like a pigeon trapped in the grip of a crow. Then his caress became soft, deceptively sweet, curving across the set of her jaw, which was clenched hard enough that her whole head shook as she craned back, the lovebite on her neck darkening, purpling like ink spilled in milk.

"Don't worry Kraehe. Ahiru isn't nearly as beautiful as you. I'm just going to use her heart for a bit, alright? I'm feeding the foolish raven a meal. He won't be able to tell whose heart it is, will he?"

She stared back at him, red eyes wide. "No- Mytho, you don't understand-"

"I understand perfectly," he snarled, gripping her head, or more precisely, her hair, which was soft as raven's feathers beneath his crushing grip.

She found herself looking up at the ceiling, her head tilted ferociously, almost painfully back. She wanted to grab a feather, create a blade, but she didn't have the control or focus. Her eyes and head were starting to swim, whether with tears or pain she did not know.

"We're going after Ahiru. It is fitting, is it not? Your first friend?" She wouldn't let the tears spill. She wouldn't. Was she not Princess Kraehe, the Princess of Crows, the Ruler of Ravens?

He kissed her again, and it was nothing like kissing the doll-like Mytho that she had loved before she had dyed his heart in Raven's blood. This kiss was cruel and harsh, even as it was passionate- and the taste of him on her tongue made her weep even as she kissed back, her mouth latched onto him. It was messy and awkward and it hurt as he bit her bottom lip, and this wasn't right- he was supposed to be kind to her, supposed to-

"Do you love me?" she whimpered softly as he released her. He didn't reply, just kissed her harder until her lips were flushed and swollen and her throat was incoherent.

"Yes," he finally allowed. "I'll be the only one to love a crow like you. And don't worry about your friend. It is good that she gives her heart to serve me." Rue shook her head, but she was too worn down to resist now. She felt her bottom lip bleeding where he bit her a little too hard, but she made no move to wipe the blood away.

"It's not that," she said weakly. "It's just that-"

"Just what?" Mytho's tone was cruel. Kraehe made a shrugging movement with her shoulders, tried to restraighten her mussed clothes. He let it slide, just this once.

Disgust rose, and he gripped it, gripped it desperately because without it there was nothing to cling to, just this overwhelming desperation to- to- Mytho lost the words to describe it, and instead gently placed a finger on Rue- Kraehe's lips, ignoring the way she winced, or the fact that blood smeared halfway down on his finger as she did so.

"It's alright, Kraehe," he lied smoothly. "I know you only wanted what you thought what the best. But I'll deal with the hearts."

A final kiss, now gentle, just the brush of dry lips on cheek. Only when he was gone did Rue turn to the mirror again, staring at her mouth, stained with saliva and blood. With enough makeup, the bruise wouldn't even be there. But even as she licked her lips clean, the bite, where his teeth sunk into her lip, was still there, the curved, uneven edges of his teeth.

"Forgive me for speaking out of place," she murmured. It must be the transformation causing him pain. It must be. She wouldn't let herself contemplate the alternative- not now, not when she had him instead of Princess Tutu. "Where are you leaving to?"

"I'm going duck hunting," said Mytho, in a show of humour that made something shrivel up inside of her. "I'll see you soon, Kraehe."

Kraehe had an urge- an urge to speak, to yell, to cajole. She did not know why- she disliked, no, hated Princess Tutu, with a hate borne of envy, a hate borne of a woman cheated of what was rightfully hers. So why was the urge to stop Mytho so strong on her lips, in her mind?

Her father would surely forgive her and Mytho, for bringing the heart of a girl as pure as Ahiru, as pure as Princess Tutu. Wouldn't he? She opened her mouth to call him, but he was already gone.

* * *

The afternoon of the next day, Ahiru tapped her feet listlessly on the floor, face downturned, the mattress squeaking beneath her every movement. It was strange, but she had never had a whole afternoon to herself before. Not like this.

Either she was on probation for stuffing up in class, held in after class to practice as punishment for being late, or finding one of Mytho's heart shards and restoring them to him. The former two events were often in the company of Pique and Lilie, and the latter often involved incidents with Rue, Fakir, Mytho, or all three of them at once.

Still, she had to do something. With that thought that she headed out in her leotard again, with her ballet shoes in her bag. She could always afford to improve in ballet, and probation aside, she didn't practice nearly enough.

"You were right," Pique said from the corridor behind her. Ahiru furrowed her brow, bag still slung over her shoulder. "Mytho told me he jumped from the window himself. I didn't get to ask him why."

"Why?" That thought had never occurred to her – or rather, it had, but she'd just brushed it off as a result of his heart being incomplete. And yet, he'd only started acting that way just now – earlier, with his heart being restored, he had been completely passive about it. Now he seemed to have become crueller – his comments to Fakir, his actions with Mr Cat…

"Why he jumped from the window, obviously," said Pique, put out, when someone else interrupted.

"Oh? So has Pique too become so entranced by Fakir that she refuses to see reason? How delightful!" At some moments, Ahiru really just wanted to bury her head into her hands. "Are you two going to battle over him?"

"Hardly," scoffed Pique. "He wouldn't give anyone a chance. If I had to pick whom he'd most likely fall in love with, I'd pick Mytho!" Crickets chirped. As though realising the extent of his blasphemy, she added hastily, "Not that it diminishes from his allure. Those eyes…" she shuddered in pleasant ecstasy.

"The aura of a dark and mysterious criminal…" Lilie continued dreamily. Both turned to Ahiru, clearly expecting her to continue.

"I'm going to practice," she said hurriedly, choosing the option of 'flee as far and fast as you can'. Pique and Lilie ended up following her, however, so the point was moot. "Besides, I'd pick Mytho any day over Fakir." She ignored the voice in her head that told her she had chosen Fakir's side in their argument just yesterday– it was irrelevant, anyway.

Both Pique and Lilie sighed. "A lost cause," they both lamented.

"Ahiru?" she heard a pleasant voice call. Mytho. She stopped. Why was he here? Why was he talking to her, of all people? She felt nervousness build in her chest and tucked her shaky hands behind her back.

"Um –" she turned around, to see Pique and Lilie fleeing in the distance, just dots in her vision. "I was just going –going to practice!" she reshouldered her bag and laughed weakly.

"I'll join you," said Mytho, and any doubts that Ahiru had seemed to flow away from her, draining away like water through a sieve. She recognised the sensation of before – which she had tried but failed to explain to Fakir.

"If you want," said Ahiru, dazedly. She shook her head rapidly, fought to clear it. This feeling – it wasn't right. It wasn't hers. She knew how she felt around Mytho, and this wasn't it. This was like a parody of love, a twisted caricature of attraction. "Why aren't you with Rue?" Somehow, it felt painful just getting that sentence out.

They reached the practice hall, passing a long-haired girl watering the flowers, the sound of water trickling over soil and rock steadying her. She grasped onto the sound, mentally substituting it with the sound of the lake, the soft sound of rain rippling out over the water, the cool brush of it over her feathers as she dived for pondweed.

"I needed to apologise for my comments and behaviour to Fakir yesterday," said Mytho. "And I don't see why Rue matters at all in this."

She held that sensation in her mind – after all, she was just a duck, a duck, a duck, a duck. These reactions, this feeling of dazed attraction– they were the sort of feelings that a normal girl would hold and feel. She wasn't a normal girl. She was a duck. She loved the prince for being strong and handsome and beautiful and kind and wise and fair, but that love was a different love – like the warmth of sunlight and the rush of water through her heart. It made her stronger – it made her better. It made her Princess Tutu.

"Well, you really should apologise to Fakir, not to me," said Ahiru stiffly, pulling on her soft ballet shoes to stand and stretch. Her feet squeaked on the freshly polished floorboards of the practice room – thankfully empty.

She was able to look back at the prince and that feeling was now mostly gone, lurking in the vestiges of her heart. Mytho seemed to hesitate, staring into her eyes with some consternation. His lip quirked up – Ahiru couldn't decide whether she really liked that look on him or not. His hand was held out to her.

"Want to dance?"

"I – sure –" She felt Mytho gently whirl her around and giddiness consumed her.

Something important niggled at her, but another glorious spin derailed her momentum. This was what she'd dreamed of doing – dancing with the prince as herself, not as Tutu. And Mytho was the perfect partner, guiding her and seemingly anticipating her every movement, her every step. She laughed and blushed furiously during the dance, though his perfection seemed to make her errors, her missteps, and the few times she nearly trod on his foot all the more obvious.

"You know, you really are quite pretty," said Mytho softly, voice caressing her ear, warm and soft. She shivered. Was she, in fact, dreaming? "Your hair especially."

"Aah –" all the blood rushing to her face was starting to make her lightheaded. "I'm not that pretty, really… You're definitely prettier than me." Mytho raised an eyebrow. "I mean, not in a girly way –" she babbled, "As in, in a really handsome and princely way." _Please, kill me now. _

Mytho laughed. "Is that how you truly feel? Insecure?" His close hold no longer seemed tender and heartfelt, but stifling. With a sudden pang of fear clashing with her own attraction, she pulled herself out of his grip, heart racing.

"I – I suppose –" she whispered breathlessly. "It's just I'm so clumsy, and plain and ordinary sometimes–"

"Tell me, Ahiru," Mytho leaned in close, dangerously close, close enough that if she tilted her head ever so slightly and leaned closer, she could have kissed him. "How far would you go to gain your heart's desire?"

His lips caressed the corner of her mouth and she practically pitched backward when he released her. She could barely hear his voice over the thudding of her own heart. The stained-glass swan window lit swirling dust motes with bright fairytale colours. "If you love me and me alone, I will make you into a true princess. Would you, Ahiru, be willing to give up your heart for that?"

He dipped over her, just as Rue had in their first pas-de-deux against Anteaterina, but his outstretched arm felt not like Rue's dramatic flourish, but the outspread wing of a swooping bird-of-prey.

"I – I have to go!" cried out Ahiru, panicked and flustered, scrambling to get away. "I just remembered I have stuff to do and – bye!" She raced out of the practice room as fast as her feet could carry her, and collapsed, panting, by a small grove of trees. This was wrong.

What was she doing? Mytho already had a girlfriend – Rue. And yet, she argued with herself, down in the lake beneath Gold Crown Town, when Tutu and Kraehe had danced their respective pas-de-deux, hadn't the prince chosen her, as opposed to Kraehe? Hadn't he left with her, and thus allowed the shard of love to be restored to him? Therefore, he and Rue were a moot point.

But that wasn't entirely the same. She wasn't really Princess Tutu – and Rue was Rue, right? She wasn't really Kraehe, right? Besides, it hadn't so much been a choice between the two princesses as a choice between freedom and captivity, and the prince had chosen freedom.

His parting words echoed in her head. _If you love me and me alone, I will make you into a true princess. Would you, Ahiru, be willing to give up your heart for that? _

She wasn't entirely sure if she'd imagined those words, but that wasn't the point. No. What frightened her more than his words was that she didn't know her answer – and what frightened her most of all, was that if she'd stayed, it might have been yes.

* * *

"Father," Kraehe whispered. "I have returned." Casting herself into the nebulous other realm where the raven was sealed was a taxing and strenuous exercise. As a result, she was still panting heavily, trying to rein her pounding heart and surging blood back under control.

For years and years as Rue, she had ignored the call of her Father – suppressing his summons often left her sick and dazed for days. She could only hope he would be merciful.

"My dearest daughter," the Raven rumbled from his place pinned behind wide swathes of swan-white feathers. "It has been a long time."

Kraehe lowered herself stiffly to her knees – she hated to kneel, hated to be beaten by others. She drove herself relentlessly in everything she did, including her dancing. The only person she had dared show weakness to, ever dared demean herself in front of was Mytho – the prince whose love she craved.

_And Ahiru, when she was first your friend, _an unpleasant voice reminded her. But here, fear won out over pride and she supplicated herself to the Raven. After all, it was only natural for a daughter to love her father, she reminded herself.

"Thank you for parting with some of your blood for me, Father. It has taken effect more rapidly than we even expected." She suppressed a shudder as she remembered what had occurred when she challenged him.

"Is there something that distresses you, my dearest daughter?" his voice filled the crevice of space-time between the town walls and the story that they currently existed between.

"He's acquired a new target," said Kraehe, head bowed. "Her name is Ahiru, part of the ballet division I –Rue joined." That girl whom lived in ignorance of her father, who cared for nothing more than Mytho and dancing and annoying Fakir, was gone forever. She was Kraehe now.

The Raven fixed her with a red-eyed glare. A single downstroke of his chained wings swayed the swan feathers and nearly buffeted her back. In her bowed position, she gripped the earth with her sweaty palms.

"Do not tell me you are against her heart being offered to revive me." Kraehe could already feel his tenuous support of her slipping, any promise of affection draining away.

"No!" she gasped. "It's not that! It's just that – just that she's the alternate form of Princess Tutu, and my prince wishes to destroy the one thing that will help him regain his heart!" She lay there, quivering, prone in fear, imagining the shadow of her Father's relentless claws hovering, ready to strike upon her bare back.

"Then it is your job to prevent him, Kraehe. Dissuade him of the idea." She heard the low current of displeasure in his voice, but it hadn't reached full-blown anger, instead, it simmered gently, warningly. Prickles ran down her bare arms to her fingertips.

"But he wouldn't be dissuaded! I insisted, but he just –" Overpowered her with intoxicating force, bruising her with his kisses, crippling her with his love. "I had no effect on him."

"Foolish little girl, you cannot manage even that? He has not yet fully transformed into a crow and you still cannot exert any authority over him. Can you truly call yourself Princess of the Ravens?" His claws flexed above her head, then retreated.

"But – Father!" her voice trembled, broke.

His displeased red eyes raked over her prone form. "After all, how are you to marry a man with an incomplete heart?" demanded Father. Then he said softly, "If you cannot peacefully convince him, then resort to any means necessary."

* * *

Contrary to his usual disposition for tragedy, Drosselmeyer was all but gnawing at his nails.

The sacrifice of Princess Tutu's heart to the corrupted prince, while tragic, was far too early in the story! He still had other players, other factors, and other plot points waiting in the wings to be revealed – the stopping of the story here felt like a letdown, and a far too early release of dramatic tension.

The audience and characters hadn't yet been pushed to breaking point – it was not nearly soon enough for the story to stop.

**And yet… and yet perhaps, this will prove an interesting twist. Let's see what Princess Tutu – what Ahiru will do. Now we shall see whether her spirit holds the mettle necessary for a heroine – or whether, deep down, she is merely just a duck. **


	2. Akt I Pflicht II

This was honestly finished faster than I expected. Updates will usually be slower (think monthly) due to exams and school stuff.

Now that my general outline is in place, I can confirm that Fakir/Ahiru is in the eventual outcome. The first chapter's warning will be adjusted to reflect this. However, I will still explore other opposing pairings i.e. Ahiru/Mytho, and have romance involving such pairings in the middle.

Dropped the rating to a T. All sexytimes will be implied. Probably. Hopefully.

* * *

For a moment, Fakir wondered why it felt so strange seeing Ahiru casually in the corridors. It wasn't as though he didn't know her. After all, she had heard him cry as a duck, and he had seen her naked as a girl (not that they were remotely similar except for the mortification involved).

Finally he identified the cause of the strangeness; she was unaccompanied by her two stooges, purple annoying and blonde more annoying. That probably meant it was safe to greet her, and wouldn't set off the half-envious, half-teasing jabs or proclamations of tragedy.

"Hey." He tapped her on the shoulder as he passed, spotting the piece of paper she held in her hand.

She was frozen in the corridor – not fallen over, not bouncing off random objects, not running away in embarrassment, not arm-flailing in desperate denial or hurrying wherever which way. She was blushing, however, and that could only mean one thing.

"So what has Mytho written?" he asked nonchalantly, peering over her shoulder, his footsteps echoing in the hallway corridor. The shadow of the corridor roof cast the letter in darkness.

"Aah-ah –" On cue, the flailing started, accompanied with audible stomping. "It's none of your business and why do you care anyway and for the last time we're not together and I'm definitely not in a love triangle with Rue or Fakir or Mr Cat or a love square either and you've totally got the wrong idea!" She finally ran out of steam at the silence and looked up, before an expression of complete shock appeared on her face. "Oh! Fakir! Uhm – I thought you were – Ah…"

In the distance, the half lunch bell tolled with the distant chimes of the town clock.

He folded his arms. "I don't see why you waste your time on such nonsensical gossip." While she looked embarrassed and appropriately distracted, he leaned over and pulled the slip of paper from her unresisting fingers.

"Hey! You could have just asked! Give that back! It's from –" Ahiru grabbed at the letter, jumping, while Fakir held it out of her reach.

"I know. Where did you get this?" asked Fakir, a strange sense of déjà vu coming over him.

_I'll be waiting on the bridge over the river at 5 o'clock this evening – Mytho._

"My locker." Ahiru visibly wilted, before she forced herself up into his face, hands fisted by her sides, balancing on her toes. "You're not going to stop me, are you?"

"No." Fakir glanced from the letter to Ahiru. "Actually, I was going to ask you whether you could try and figure out why Mytho's been acting… off lately. This is the perfect opportunity for you to do that."

Strain flickered across her face. Her lips parted, but then whatever she was about to say vanished. She nodded, but the smile on her face seemed faltering. "I will. I won't let you down. And thank you."

In the corner of his eye, he noticed Kraehe distant, striding rapidly up the corridor. A slight jerk of his head was enough to warn Ahiru.

For a few seconds, she squinted back, and he read concern for Rue in her gaze, but he wasn't one to lose a debate. Or staring match, even if his opponent was (adorably, he admitted) nibbling at her bottom lip with pleading blue eyes.

When she looked down and away, he said, loudly, "Don't you have your friends to get back to?"

He closed his eyes as Kraehe approached, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling. When he opened them again, Ahiru was gone. Relief spread through him – for a moment he thought she was going to confront and try to 'save' Kraehe.

_Like she'd saved him from his misguided actions as a Knight?_ He pushed that thought away.

Hands seized the back of his shoulders. "Where is Ahiru?" a low voice demanded, breath soft against his neck.

While Rue had been a possessive bitch, she had been tolerable by the virtue that she, like him, agreed with the state that he was in, and wanted to keep him that way (and to herself). The few times anyone else had tried to intervene with Mytho, they banded together, and few dared challenge them when they were actively working together. And she saved him the trouble of driving away the fangirls.

But her alter ego, Kraehe, was a force onto herself, an unknown he couldn't control, couldn't predict. Her fingers stroked through the shirt, to where the scar began, and he could feel her nails, digging. A sudden pang of fear assaulted him as he swallowed. No. He'd escaped – defied that fate.

Fakir made a shrug, releasing her hands, and sneered. "I don't see why you think I know. Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you where you stand." His fingers twitched to his belt, but no sword or knife hung sheathed there.

"Well, Princess Tutu for one wouldn't be happy at you for killing Rue," Kraehe smiled at him, poisonously sweet. "And you couldn't even defeat me down by that lake, so what makes you think that you have any chance of killing me now?"

If a confrontation were to truly occur, in open ground, there would be witnesses. And Rue, unlike him, still had an intact reputation. He couldn't risk a suspension now. He wouldn't succeed hemmed up in the corridors where she could swoop at him, either, however. Perhaps it would be best to avoid her.

"Giving empty threats?" Fakir put on the specific, taunting, silky, almost breathy tone that Rue had used against him once upon a time. "My, Kraehe, that isn't like you at all!" He crossed to the stairs, carefully keeping her in the corner of his eye.

Except what should have enraged her simply appeared to amuse her. Languidly, as though they were friends, not enemies (as though he wasn't a knight and she wasn't a crow), she trailed him, snagging his wrist as he passed. "You've developed a sense of humour," she noted idly. "Ahiru is rubbing off on you. A sham of a princess and a failed knight – you go well together."

He felt his temper hitch as they walked together down the stairs, hand in hand in a parody of affection. "Hardly." He couldn't resist a dig. "Better than a storybook prince and an ugly crow, though, but anything would be."

Her fingers tightened around his wrist, but without the Raven's blood active, she did not have the strength to mangle it by simply gripping, as much as she'd like to. Certainly she was trying; the circulation to his fingers was nearly cut off.

"Don't you want to hear about what Mytho has planned for Ahiru, on their little date? Jealous?" Her fingers threaded through his as they walked through the long untrimmed grass behind the school.

His stomach sank, as he realised the implications. "Did you set her up for this?" Was the meeting a trap she was gloating over, knowing that he had no real way of stopping Ahiru?

"Hardly," Kraehe sniffed, her nose in the air, so similar to the previously cold and haughty Rue. "After all, I have no need to subject Princess Tutu to more danger."

"Danger?" What was he doing here now in this suspiciously clandestine meeting with Mytho's (Ex? Current? Former? On and off again?) girlfriend in the grove behind the back of the school when Ahiru and Mytho were threatened?

"Mytho's going to take Ahiru's heart and offer it up as a sacrifice to the Raven." Kraehe released him.

Fakir rubbed at his wrist with a snort. "That's even more stupid than all the love triangle gossip that Ahiru's friends subject her too." He glanced around at the open trees and steeled himself for a fight. "Do you think I'd fall for your deceptions that easily?"

Kraehe whirled around in a single pirouette, and her school skirt faded into the black, ridiculously revealing, dark-feathered costume of her other form. "Look, you useless wretch for a Knight. I could kill you right now, and I'd enjoy it." She plucked a single feather from the air, and it formed into a deadly dark blade. "But I can't risk Tutu getting killed."

Next time he was bringing a sword to school, suspension or not. Fakir grabbed a single straight thick branch off the ground, shoulder height. A staff – a flimsy weapon at best, made for deflecting and useless at attack.

"Why should you care if Tutu is killed?" asked Fakir, spinning the makeshift staff and planting it into the ground. "From what I remember, you wanted to see her vanish. How do I know this isn't a trap?"

Kraehe stared at the knight, angered, her fingers clenching and unclenching around the single feathered blade she held. She gave a single short, sharp, laugh. "You see, Princess Tutu is needed if my father is going to be revived.

Fakir's mind grasped on only one possible player, and he felt a distant, numb horror grow within him. "The Raven."

"Maybe you're not a complete dunderhead after all," Kraehe smiled. "But you see, Mytho, in order to please my father, has been seeking a young and beautiful heart for a sacrifice." She pouted almost playfully. "And I wouldn't discourage him, but he's grasped on the most pure heart of all."

Princess Tutu.

"There is no reason for Mytho to serve your Father." Fakir snarled, knuckles white from resisting the urge to lash out with the staff.

Kraehe laughed, low and sultry, thick like dark honey. "I suppose you haven't figured it out yet, have you? The heartshard of love, which Tutu returned, was soaked in the Raven's blood. He'll become the Prince of the Crows, and love only me, but before that, my father needs to be revived."

The staff dropped from his limp hands. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I wouldn't want to lose favour with the prince," Kraehe crouched slightly, like a bird about to take flight. "And you've already proven your willingness to sacrifice your life on meaningless little things, not that you've succeeded." She sprang into the air, vanishing in a whirl of crow's feathers. Her words echoed in the emptiness. "It might be a trap. But do you want to risk Princess Tutu's heart on it?"

Fakir heard the sound of a blade whistling through the air, before a dagger planted itself at his feet, ears ringing with the sound of mocking laughter.

* * *

Ahiru clutched at the single scrap of paper upon which Mytho's message was written like a lifeline. Upon closer inspection, she had noticed the sharp edges of his lettering. It was strange – she'd expected his handwriting to be a fluid cursive, rather than the sharp spiky crabbed scrawl she was reading.

"You wanted to see me?" she asked, approaching Mytho. The afternoon bordering on twilight seemed eerily silent, as though someone had predicted her uncertainty and mirrored it in the surrounding skies **(oh how little you know, my dear)**. The river glowed a deep blue-black beneath the bridge, where she had found the heart shard of curiosity long, long ago.

She knew she could – should have told Fakir what had happened in the practice room. But in his words, he'd placed faith in her to do this little thing, when he didn't enjoy cooperating with others and was always trying to do things alone, especially in protecting Mytho. For him to entrust even this little thing to her – she didn't want to disappoint him.

"Of course I'd want to see you," Mytho said softly, running a hand through fine silver-white hair. "Have you thought on what I've said?" And with those words, the sensation, like she was being lulled into a half-conscious state, or hypnotised, rushed upon her like a waterfall pounding ceaselessly on the rocks beneath.

She would have dubbed it the 'suspicious feeling when I'm out of control and really dreamy around Mytho but not in a good way', but even its acronym, SFWIOOCARDAMBNIAGW, was a mouthful. _Keeping on thinking about random subjects,_ Ahiru told herself. It seemed to work, except all of her thoughts kept circling around to the person in front of her.

"About what you've said –" Ahiru wrung her hands. She ought to be outraged, but the lack of any real opposition to his words had caused more unease than his statement itself. "Why are you acting this way, Mytho? What happened to you? You used to be –" _Kinder. Nicer._ She tried to end the statement without being rude, but found nothing.

Mytho hesitated, fingers by his sides twitching ever so slightly before his body went deathly still. She felt, rather than saw, his hand land on her shoulder, cold through her thin uniform shirt.

"So you want to know why?" Mytho's voice was a gentle caress, and Ahiru felt her resistance melt. "You know, the truth is, I'm a prince from a story. The story of 'The Prince and the Raven'."

_I know,_ Ahiru thought, but even in her fogged-up state something prevented her from saying it. Something about her identity. Something important – if only she could remember. So instead she said, "A prince, huh? You'd be perfect for the role."

His expression tightened, as though in pain, and his hand dropped back by his side. However, it smoothed over, as though a mask had been painted over, and he said softly, "You'd make an even better princess."

"Not better," she murmured, thinking of her own alter-ego. For the other form of her was because of him, and embodied all the qualities of him she admired.

"How can you know if you've never tried?" His fingers threaded through her hair, her loose braid fraying like the ribbons of her worn ballet shoes. "I could give you that. I could make you a princess."

_You already have._

Where the close proximity to him – her head close to his chest, his hand on the small of her back – would have usually made her blush and stammer and panic; now she only felt a dazed happiness. Not even happiness, just a raw underlying need and desperation that twined into the very fibre of her being.

"I – I –" Something was wrong, very wrong, but any conflict she held seemed to be faint, and smothered, like a distant cry carried on the wind.

His fingers traced the silvery-gold chain of her necklace, trailing down to touch her red pendant. In response, her heartbeat thudded and her pulse sped out loud in her ears. When his finger brushed over her pendant, there was a jolt, a sudden feeling of connection, of completion that she could neither explain nor define. She gasped.

There was an overwhelming sense of loss when his finger left the pendant and trailed lower, down her pitifully flat figure. Mytho's expression flickered, as though he too, had felt the same fusing and disconnect.

It was enough to snap her out of it – she glanced up at Mytho through her lashes, and the sight of him clothed in black feathers – dark as ebony, raven-sleek – greeted her.

She should run – she ought to run. But that felt cowardly, like the last time she had met him in the practice room and fled. Now she had to stay, had to succeed, for Fakir, who had given her the strength to see beyond the prospect of vanishing against Kraehe.

How had she managed to resist so well last time? _By remembering my true self – by remembering that I'm not really a girl, and not really a princess either. I won't fall for his tricks again. I won't._

She was just a duck, she reminded herself. Just a duck and nothing more, no matter what this twisted version of him said.

Her heart felt heavier at those thoughts (just a duck) and the emotion twined soft and sad through her head. She felt darkness, the lull of whatever Mytho was doing threaten to slip in the cracks (just a duck) that fissured from the sadness, but she cast it out with single-minded determination (just a duck). When she'd locked her duck-self deep in the crevices of her heart, she let her outer girl-self slip back into trance.

"To become a princess?" Her girl-self whispered.

"Give me your heart, and I will give you my love in return," said Mytho, and his voice turned deep and menacing. Her duck-self shuddered at his eyes – hawk eyes, hunter eyes, a pale red like a mix of red-silver heartshards and dark crimson blood. "Love me – love me as a princess truly loves her prince."

Her girl-self reached out, curved her arms to dance. Her duck-self did not know the dance that she was dancing, but every reach, every twirl, seemed to ache for something she would never ever have (just a duck duck duck remember?).

By separating her two selves, it was easier. The superficial effects of the trance served to prevent her heart racing or arms flailing or voice cracking from her deceptions. _Why would you lie to the one you love, Ahiru?_

"I will give you my heart," she felt her girl-self whisper, and her duck-self temporarily took hold again through thin veil that separated the two, "if you'd tell me why you've changed."

Mytho seemed perversely amused. "You would, would you? I'll hold you to that."

He drew his arm back, and he danced with a grace that merged the powerful qualities of Fakir's dance with the seductive playfulness of Kraehe's and made it definitively his. Her breath caught in her throat; the slip of paper she had been holding fluttered from her hands into the water of the river beneath.

"Once upon a time, there was a foolish prince," he swept low, arms twining sensually over his head, before bursting apart to mirror claws. "This prince sought to protect those whom could not protect themselves, so much so that he shattered his heart to do so, and even after both reason and emotion left him, the need to protect was all he had left."

He twirled his arms around his head and reached out a hand to her. Her girl-self reached forward, but her duck-self forced her to pull back, to stand quaking and still as he circled her.

"His ultimate enemy was a great and powerful raven who even he could not defeat. In the end, the removal of his heart kept his enemy caged. Time passes, as it does, and the heartless prince wandered the world incomplete." A hand stroked her back, and Ahiru swallowed to stare up at the dark, dark sky.

She had never felt so helpless, since she had always faced others in the form of Princess Tutu. Was it worth hiding her identity from Mytho? Even if Mytho had told Fakir that he would rather not find out whom she really was, Princess Tutu would be more suited to facing Mytho like this.

"And then, one day, his heart shards began to be returned to him," said Mytho, glossing over the involvement of her alter-ego, his arms spread like wings, his grand jeté gliding from one side of the bridge to the other, weightless. "He began to regain his heart, and with it, his emotions."

Should she transform? Could she? He drew closer again, whirling around her with a dizzying series of turns that would have made her collapse if she tried them as a girl.

"But when he regained one of his heart shards, he found that it was soaked in the blood of his ancient enemy," said Mytho softly.

"A heart shard?" She whispered, but softly enough that he hadn't heard. Had she –had she caused this – was it all her fault? She felt herself weaken, felt her resolve dim and flicker, the mental wall that separated her two selves began to crumble.

"It was this raven's blood that strengthened him, awakened him and changed him into what you see before him now. The return of the shard of love caused him to realise how foolish, how unnecessary his role had been. Why spend one's life helping others, protecting those whom wouldn't even bother to do so themselves? What a pointless endeavour."

How did she transform before? It had always been something unconscious, manifesting when she needed it. _I need to become Princess Tutu_, she begged the pendant, begged herself. Otherwise she couldn't resist the prince much longer – she'd give up (her heart) if she had to keep on –

"What fascinates me, however, is how long you've managed to hold out against me, when others have crumbled so easily. There's more to you than you seem." He smiled at her, expectant, triumphant, and held out a single hand. A single beckoning motion, and her heartstrings _twanged_ like an off-key cello string.

**(you shouldn't have promised something so rashly, my dear)**

No, she couldn't – no! But even the death throes of her duck-self beneath the raven's blood became faint with the promises of love, promises of happiness, promises of glory.

The world rent apart as her resolve crumbled. Her pendant flared a deep, ugly red, and she was bathed in harsh light. Her transformation in Princess Tutu, halted as soon as it had begun, left her features faintly aglow. Beneath her, an altar of dark-feathered hands formed. On this pyre she laid supplicant, a willing sacrifice.

"Promise to love only me and hate everyone else," Mytho commanded, sweeping huge conjured wings forward. Those words etched into her heart, a command unwillingly obeyed – but obeyed nevertheless.

"Y–" the word lay on the tip of her tongue, but something deep inside her, deeper even than the love she bore for the prince, warned her against it. The particles of her being teetered on the brink, threatening to disperse and vanish with her unwitting confession. Instead, however, something different issued from her lips, a compromise between self-preservation and self-sacrifice.

"If that is what the prince wills."

* * *

Fakir stared at the sight before him. Ahiru, glowing softly, lay resplendent on a sacrificial altar. Mytho, in a parody of his usual self, towered over her, clothed in dark feathers. So Kraehe was telling the truth, for once.

"Promise to love only me and hate everyone else." Mytho's voice was of a deeper timbre than usual, and the sickening sound of it made Fakir's hand at his sword-hilt tighten. A long silence fell over the bridge as Fakir crept closer. With every passing second, hope – hope that Ahiru would make it out alive, that she would be all right, grew within him.

"If that is what the prince wills." She glowed a deeper red, the light growing from her pendant near-blinding him, and casting a scarlet pall over the nearby surrounds. Bathed in the red light, the water beneath the bridge looked like a river of blood.

A desperate panic consumed him. What sort of knight was he, if he couldn't even protect the princess of his liege? Even if it was from his corrupted vassal himself.

"Ahiru! Don't – he's trying to steal your heart!" She remained immobile, her body slumped, seemingly lifeless atop the mound of hands, though one leg was propped up, almost askew in comparison with the rest of her limp body.

"Ah, the foolish knight," Mytho mockingly gestured to Ahiru. "Come to rescue the fair maiden from my wicked clutches?"

Fakir took a single, deep breath, trying to calm himself. Focus himself. "Mytho, why would you serve the raven? Why would you steal a heart of another, to serve your greatest enemy?"

"As thanks to the Raven for awakening me," Mytho smiled a knife-sharp smile, and beat his ridiculously large raven-wings. The gale sent the water rippling; Ahiru's hair fluttered, stirred restlessly by the wind. "And why, my dear knight, are you going against me? Isn't it your role to protect me, serve me? Though you couldn't even do that, it seems."

"The prince I served was a noble prince–" Fakir drew his sword, and swung. "–not one that stole the heart of innocent girls. I protect the innocent – something you were famed for and seem to have forgotten, with your heart corrupted by Raven's blood."

Mytho stiffened, for a few brief moments, the twisted throne of darkness he stood on faltering – but then it was gone, and he flicked his face to the side as though banishing an irritating fly.

"You're making a mistake," said Fakir, bolder at the hesitation of the prince. Perhaps he was not all gone. "Ahiru – she's –" Had it only been a day ago since he had helped her to decide to keep her identity secret, since Mytho had lightly ribbed him over his cold dismissal of girls? "She's Princess Tutu and needed to restore your heart–"

"Begone, you pitiful wretch. Did you honestly expect me to believe that ploy? At least choose a more likely candidate." Mytho sneered in dismissal. "She can barely keep her balance on flat ground, and you expect me to believe that she has the strength to dance a pas-de-deux alone?" Mytho chuckled. "Besides, if she were Princess Tutu, she would have transformed to save herself."

Fakir stared, unable to rebut the prince. He himself had been hard-pressed to believe that the clumsy girl was the legendary princess, even when all the hints had been right before him.

Mytho raised his voice. "Ahiru! Give me your heart as a worthy sacrifice." At the end of his words, his voice lowered into an almost-growl.

"Yes…" The whisper was so soft that he almost missed it. Her head arched back further and suddenly a red image of her seemed to superimpose itself over her body. It reminded him vaguely of one of Mytho's heartshards. _Her emotions,_ he realised with a pang of fear. _Her heart._

Fakir ran to the altar. But some unseen force around it buffeted his efforts, and he could not reach her. The red glow of the pendant flickered and died.

"You will not succeed. It is her own will that stops you. She wants to give up her heart, and unless those feelings change, you cannot save her." Mytho smirked, darkly triumphant, and for a moment Fakir saw not him, but the Raven, wings outstretched, in his place.

"Ahiru!" he called, voice frantic. "Snap out of it! This isn't the real Mytho!" But she remained still, locked so deep in whatever trance she was put under that his words would not reach her. Could not reach her, no matter how he tried.

Then the only way to stop this would be to stop Mytho himself.

He charged at the false mockery of a prince, climbing the mound of shadows upon which Mytho stood. Dark hands seethed beneath him, grabbing at his feet, the cold touch sending prickles up his still-clothed legs.

He swung his sword, but Mytho brought a dark summoned blade to counter it. Sweat coated his hands and made his grip on the hilt unsteady. They stood, blade locked against blade, pushing against each other.

For all that Fakir should have had the height, reach, and weight advantage, Mytho gradually forced him back with incredible strength, until Fakir's own sword was mere inches from his face.

Fakir gritted his teeth. He couldn't – he wouldn't die at the hands of the prince he served. Not here. Not now. Summoning all his strength, his threw his weight forward, practically tackling Mytho. They both hit the ground, and a desperate tussle began. Almost tauntingly, Mytho allowed his guard around his vital points slip, as though he knew that Fakir couldn't bring himself to truly harm him.

"It's too late, you know," murmured Mytho beneath him. "She's already decided to give up her heart. There's nothing you can do about it. Her fate has been chosen – you cannot defy it."

As though to affirm his words, the red image of Ahiru – the visual representation of her heart, seemed to rise from her, and hovered above her prone body. Beneath her, it was as though she had lost something vital. She was as pale as the previously heartless prince, and all of her seemed washed out: her previously wide blue eyes blank, almost dull grey in colour; her brilliant hair a dull faded ginger. Her skin was bleached not bone white, but a dull cream like old cloth.

However, without Mytho there, her heart simply hovered aimlessly above her body.

"I haven't been sliced in half yet," snapped Fakir, pinning Mytho, uneasy at the stalemate. Without the prince, Ahiru couldn't finish sacrificing her heart, but while he was trapping Mytho, he couldn't even try rescuing her – not that he was able to.

"That was because you were too pathetic to face your fate," Mytho responded, while attempting to free himself, with little success. "At least the final death of the knight in the tale was courageous, if misguided and pathetic. Here, the story has simply passed you by – you have no purpose here, and you cannot change anything."

Those words, mocking, taunting, pecked at him cruelly enough to break Fakir's concentration and failing strength. Mytho knocked him back – Fakir landed awkwardly on his side, bruises forming. Mytho strode back, composure recovered, to Ahiru – a single beckoning of his finger called her heart to him. Her projection faded to a red stone in his hands, small, seemingly unobtrusive, but somehow warm and gentle-looking, despite its darkened, faded colour.

It was too late – Fakir sank back into the ground, when a feverish determination seized him. He had to save her. He needed to save her. There was no alternative.

An insane idea, borne of nothing more than fierce desperation, a lightning-fast spurt of inspiration, brought him to his feet. His body thrummed with adrenaline and purpose – purpose which he had been lacking over the past few weeks. Everything seemed to be rendered in sharp, crystal clarity. The uncertainty, present ever since he had first seen Ahiru with Mytho in the practice room long ago, before he had known of Tutu's return, vanished completely.

He charged, not at Mytho, but at Ahiru's seemingly lifeless body. The flickering barrier of strange raven magic threatened him, pushed him back (weaker now, with Ahiru's heart gone from her body and robbed of her will) – but with all his might, he swung the sword of Lohengrin down.

The barrier crackled, hissing blue fire, but his sword cleaved across her breastbone, slashing the links that held the pendant in place. The barrier hadn't diverted all of the force behind his enormous swing, and a cut just above her heart began bleeding freely.

The pendant was nearly sent flying, but he dove to the side to catch it. Ahiru's girl form flared white and vanished in a burst of yellow feathers.

A roar of frustration that he barely recognised as Mytho's echoed across the water. He slipped her duck-form within his tattered, shredded jacket and saw her heart in Mytho's hand fade and vanish, corresponding with sudden warmth from the unconscious bird he held against his ribcage.

"How – what did you –" All the anger had vanished, replaced by a tentative confusion. "Get a-away Fakir!" Mytho's voice trembled, and he convulsed, body wracked with tremors. "Don't come near – don't –"

Fakir took the warning, and ran, sword still in hand and duckling beneath his arm, leaving the prince to battle his own internal demons.

* * *

Kraehe stretched on the barre, effortlessly kicking out her left leg and grabbing it by the ankle to hold the position. When the pain of stretching was enough to break her from her thoughts, she switched legs and repeated the same process.

Little commotion was raised about the absence of Mytho – thanks to Fakir, he had been frequently absent, and for longer stretches of time than this. However, the strange gossip that she was currently being fought over by both Mytho _(if only)_ and Fakir _(hah!)_ was still circulating throughout the school.

Fakir was at class, surprisingly. From what she had seen of their fight, Fakir ought to be in-capitated and resting. She supposed that for him, he was. Instead of pushing himself through punishing 'tours a la seconde', Fakir was merely brushing over the basics, with quick glissade leaps at the ends of each sequence. His face showed brief flickers of pain across his face mid-jump.

But what drew her eye were not the brief spasms of pain across his face but the pendant which hung around his neck. Dull, somewhere between rusty-red and the colour of blood, it stylistically matched the crude dull grey iron necklace it hung on.

If she hadn't seen it yesterday, when Fakir somehow broke through the barrier to slice through the chain of Ahiru's necklace, she would have missed it. The pendant was duller than the one Ahiru wore, and definitely uglier than the winged necklace of Tutu, but instinct told her that it was no coincidence. They were the one and the same.

With the way she had vanished, along with the projection of her heart, something had happened – Fakir, in cutting the pendant, had done something to Princess Tutu. Had he saved her – or unwittingly killed her?

If he had actually killed Ahiru to prevent the Raven from gaining more power from her sacrifice– Father would not be pleased. Kraehe internally shivered at the thought.

Either way, the pendant was a crucial part of the puzzle. At Mr Cat's sudden glance over at her, though, she realised she had become lost in thought… and had been staring at Fakir's neck in the process.

This merited her several speculative, and a few mocking, glances, which she refused to dignify with any sort of response, though a whispered, "Mytho's not enough for her now, is he? She's going after the wonderful Fakir too –" made her bristle in both anger and contempt.

Looking back down, she began the preparation for a fouette, rising into relevé as she began her turns. Fouettes were probably her weakest point as a dancer.

No, fouettes weren't her weakness, she corrected herself, bitterly, but her stamina. She had power, grace, dexterity, precision, and charisma, but she lacked the strength (or was it willpower?) to keep on going in spite of her limits, to keep dancing no matter what happened.

The one skill of dancing in which Tutu was consistently ahead of her in was stamina. Tutu seemed to have an endless reservoir of energy from which to draw upon, that let her dance the entirety of Giselle, and allowed her to dance a pas-de-deux alone, despite failure after failure.

Even her alter-ego, Ahiru, still held that trait, even if she lacked everything else Princess Tutu possessed. Ahiru, clumsy, graceless and a consistently bad dancer, did enough hours of basic practice on detention that would have left her burned out after a week.

Even fully as Kraehe, the coda of Odile – the stunning thirty-two fouettes which were the trademark of the Black Swan– she was still unable to complete. She'd tried, transformed into her other-self, with raven's blood at fever-pitch in her veins, and she'd barely managed twenty-eight.

The pain from her pointe-shoes finally became unbearable and she rested near the wall. In her merely human body five – maybe six on a good day – was her limit.

_Princess Tutu would have no trouble at all._

"You're improving," noted Mr Cat. Unlike with the other girls, he saw her endlessly frustrated practices. While with other unmotivated girls, he regularly plied them with threats of marriage to get them on their feet (even in the special class) he relented with the girl he saw as Rue. "Tuck in your core muscles, and practise holding your relevé."

She nodded, as the bells chimed for the end of class. Fakir hadn't even waited for Mr Cat's rounds of advice.

_What's he in such a hurry for? _she wondered, slipping off her pointe shoes to follow.

Usually she didn't lower herself to snooping like this. She could normally count on the other crows of Father's to perform espionage for her, but that meant asking another favour of him – and he had been displeased with her lately.

Instead of heading home to the town's smith, Fakir turned to the library, with its musty tomes and old fairy-tales. She hung back in the shadow of a nearby tree, and transformed, tailing him through flight. It was difficult to ascertain where he had gone, and she was left to swoop in an undignified fashion from window to window.

What could he want in there? Surely he had read the Prince and the Raven many times before, and it was hardly likely that he was going to find any answers in the pages of a book. She snorted. Even now, he was still trying to be useful, still trying to guard Mytho, still trying to affect the story, even though he should have died against her in the lake. How pathetic.

Hovering briefly near the arched windows of the library's main room, she spotted a different boy – a stranger, really – who was speculatively flicking through an old historical tome. He pushed up his glasses with a finger as he hunched over the book.

She landed on the outer sill of the arched windows. The glass pressed cold against her fingers.

_Where would the windows to the other rooms of the library be? _She wondered. The purple-haired boy looked up, and his gaze met hers through the window.

She froze for a brief moment, before remembering. Only those directly affected by the tale could see her and Tutu as they truly were. But for outsiders, they would only see a swan when Tutu appeared… and in her case, they would only see a crow. A larger-than-normal crow, certainly, but a crow nevertheless.

The boy with the glasses returned without a second thought to his book, and she flew away, still somewhat shaken. There!

She caught sight of Fakir, slouched against a ladder, leaning on the shelves of books. He sat near window height, foot propped on one of the lower rungs. The book in his hands looked to be defaced; he fingered the torn edges, expression unreadable.

Her eyes, again, were drawn to the necklace he wore – but perhaps it would be better not to reveal her hand too early.

"Fakir," she greeted, painting a signature smirk on her face – the mask of raven-arrogance that her transformed self donned effortlessly. All doubt and hesitance vanished beneath the raven's blood, to be replaced by playful, casual cruelty. "I must say, I gave you too much credit. You very nearly let Princess Tutu's heart be stolen."

Now, how to get the pendant without that meddlesome knight noticing?

"You were watching?" Fakir's hands clenched around the book before he carefully closed it again to replace it on the shelf. With some amusement, she noted that this time, Fakir was armed. A dagger, the sheath half-concealed by his belt, glinted from a ray of light behind her.

"You tell me," said Kraehe softly. "Although I must admit, Tutu vanishing like that was a little astounding. I didn't expect you to be so pragmatic as to kill her… unless, as a failure of a knight, you couldn't even protect one little princess."

Lightly, she flexed her foot in her black ballet-shoes, pointing her toe at Fakir.

"Believe what you wish," snapped Fakir, making a show of reopening the book and ignoring her. "I will not play by your games, Kraehe."

She mock-pouted, even as frustration boiled within her. Hate, too, came easily, coalescing with the hot rush of Father's blood in her veins. Did it really matter if he lived or died? But then, it would be highly inconvenient here – Fakir was a tough opponent, even if he had no alter-ego princess transformation to aid him.

"No thank you? Why, you're as ungrateful as they say you are." She slipped a hand through the feathers of her skirt. Feathers came loose, tickling at her skin. She slipped one between her fingers, stroking it with her thumb so it grew silver-sharp.

"Since you're responsible for the actions of the prince in the first place, I see no reason to thank you," Fakir refused to look up and face her. Coward. "Whatever you have to say, just spit it out. I don't have the time or patience for this."

If he wasn't willing to play, perhaps it would be time to bait him. "That's a pretty necklace you're wearing," she purred, toes pointing at his neck. "I wonder… could it be a gift from Tutu?"

From the stiffening of his shoulders, the necklace was indeed more important than she had previously thought. Fakir relinquished his seat on the ladder, moving to climb down.

Her declaration, instead of baiting him, stirred anxiety and worry in his expression. Her eyes narrowed. She had no intention of letting him escape without the information she needed.

"Perhaps you should give your own heart to the Raven and save Mytho from all that hard work," Fakir retorted. "I'd be very thankful if you did that – and I'm sure Ahiru would be as well."

Did he really think she'd be set off by such statements? Silkily-whispered threats and poisonously-sweet insults (not to mention all that could be insinuated) were her forte, and indeed, main method of communication. Such obvious moves only highlighted the fact that he was oh-so-obviously avoiding the question.

Toying with Fakir was getting more onerous, especially since he wasn't volunteering any information on either the whereabouts of Tutu, nor about the piece of jewellery he was wearing. But no matter.

"You need to loosen up a little," Kraehe said, softly. "And for my ungiven thanks, I think I'll be taking that."

She slipped from her seat on the window, lightly landing on the ladder upon which Fakir stood. It rocked nevertheless, unbalancing against the wall, and tilting dangerously beneath their feet.

Fakir gripped one of the bookshelves, desperately straining to prevent the ladder toppling and crashing to the ground. "Have you lost all sense?" he hissed. "What are you –"

Another voice cut in. "I'm really sorry for interrupting but I need some references on Coppélia's choreography –" Kraehe curled her lip in irritation, and let her transformation drop, feathered dress fading to her ruby-red leotard. A giant crow mauling Fakir was just too suspicious, after all –

"They're in another room," ground out Fakir, fumbling at his belt for the dagger with his free hand, angling as far away from Rue as he could without totally unbalancing the ladder. His free hand still desperately held the bookshelf.

"Are you sure?" the voice continued from outside. "I checked the references and I even asked the boy in the other room –" With a grunt, he finally pulled the dagger free. She grabbed the wrist with the blade and twisted. She had not come here to fail now!

"Quite," snarled Fakir, trying to free his wrist and kick her without unbalancing the ladder. In retaliation, she stomped as hard as she could on his toes, but since her feet were in soft ballet slippers, the attempt was probably for naught.

She managed to make his hold on the knife loosen, and it fell spinning to the ground, landing with a muffled thump.

"Wait Fakir, is that you–" The girl continued. Another fangirl of his? Rue rolled her eyes in exasperation, before an utterly ridiculous idea entered her head. No – there was no chance would it work even as a distraction, unless…

She threw all her weight to one side, causing the ladder to creak impressively as it threatened to do what it had been trying to do for the length of the fight – topple to the ground. Fakir swore, and stopped fighting to cling to the wall through the ladder and use his weight to stop it quaking. "Just stop shaking the damned–"

She heard a click, as though the door was opening.

As swiftly as a circling crow, she swooped, her lips sealing his neatly. Fakir froze beneath her, and that brief instant was all she needed to hook a finger under his collar to slip the long chain from over his head to hers.

Fakir all but threw her off him, and his eyes widened in realisation. His hands left the bookshelf to grab at the pendant now dangling around her neck, but without him to hold the ladder up, it fell. Rue managed to push herself off the ladder, landing neatly on the ground in a crouch. She heard a crash from beside her.

Fakir's landing wasn't as nearly as smooth – he was somehow tangled beneath the ladder, and looked to be in a painful position. She smirked.

"Rue?" the violet-haired girl at the entrance stared at the both of them. Ahiru's friend in the academy intermediate class, Rue realised. "Fakir – am I interrupting –"

Gossip would already be flying around the school; she might as well play into it. "Thank you for the necklace," she said sweetly, to Fakir, fingering Tutu's pendant, ignoring the other girl completely. "But you're still a terrible kisser."

The girl – what was her name, Pique? – opened her mouth and closed it again, looking like she couldn't believe what had happened. In retrospect, Kraehe didn't blame her.

"Girls do like shiny things," she said silkily. "As it happens, so do the crows. Your gift is much appreciated. Many thanks, my dear Knight."


	3. Akt I Pflicht III

This is my shortest chapter thus far. Also, I just hit my month deadline! At a run after my exams too. After some thought, I have chosen to drop the rating to 'T'. I'm not sure how comfortable I'd be writing lemons, so I'd rather just stick with the safer stuff.

We'll see though. If it turns out that I do end up writing lemon, I'll have to push the rating back up again. But for now, enjoy without fear of Fifty-Shades-of-Grey styled purple prose.

* * *

Drosselmeyer, suspended before the scene, rocked back in his chair, and laughed heartily. The story clearly had more potential than he had ever imagined. Tutu's realisation that it was her restoration of the heart shard of love which had caused the corruption of the prince… was entertaining, to say the least.

And the sacrifice of the heart of Tutu to the prince had more tragedy than he'd dreamed. It was just too bad that the Knight had actually managed to thwart that outcome.

Not that it truly mattered – there were better endings out there, after all. What did worry him, though, was the fact that Tutu had held out so long and that the Knight had intervened when his role in the story should have long been over.

**Let's see whether you recognise the true worth of that little gem you're holding, my black swan. Don't disappoint me.**

The pendant which had once been Tutu's swung idly from Kraehe's curled fingers as she walked back to her dormitory. Shoving thoughts of rebellious characters from his mind, Drosselmeyer brought the gears closer to intently watch the dark princess, whom appeared deep in thought, brain churning as frenetically as the gears in the clock tower.

**This is the second time you've lost the pendant, little duck. You should really be more careful with what you own. You nearly lost your heart… and next time, it might just be your life.**

* * *

Ahiru quacked angrily at the note on the wall. Who did Fakir think he was?

_Just stay put and rest, moron. There's no need to go to class today for you anyway. Try not to get yourself injured again. Knowing you, you'd probably drown in the bathtub. And no, that isn't an invitation to try. I've told Charon I brought home a pet, so he shouldn't bother you._

_– Fakir_

Get herself injured again? What was he talking about? She quacked angrily, trying to flap her wings, when a sudden pain shot through from her wingtip to her chest, which alternately itched and ached. Bandages swaddled her chest and wrapped securely around her wing. He must have bandaged it.

_That's right… yesterday, he saved me. _She remembered only flashes, bits of talking with Mytho, fear mixed with anticipation, and then… floating, as though lost in the undercurrents of a dream. That had been broken by a violent pain across her chest, a sudden coldness and with it, sharp awareness like swimming in ice-water, and then… blackness.

_Your fault,_ whispered the voice in her head. _Your fault that the prince has changed now, didn't you see didn't you realise the piece of his heart was tainted corrupted changed not him–_

She wracked her head desperately. There had been more, but they were jumbled, like Mytho's words to her. No. She wouldn't think about it now. She'd turn back into a girl and then – and then she would think about it. Waddling forward, a 'nest' of towels shielded her webbed feet from the tile. After some awkward manoeuvring, she climbed to the edge and slipped in, diving beneath the tepid water.

The transformation never came. She didn't have the pendant!

Fakir must have taken it. She snapped her beak in annoyance and climbed out, shaking her feathers dry. Did he think she, too, was some heartless prince that needed to be locked in a room for her own safety? _He was such a mean, evil, heartless, stuck up – was that bread?_

Before she knew it, she had waddled across the cold tile to peck at a blue glazed plate covered in haphazardly torn pieces of bread. It was good, too, with the slight crunchy texture around the crust, but soft, with little bits of grain sprinkled around the –

The door burst open, and she quacked in surprise, beak still full of delicious, wonderful bread. Fakir. She swallowed, and flapped at him angrily, ignoring the warning twinges of pain.

_Why did you lock me in here, huh?_ She quacked at him, shaking her wet feathers at him. _You're just as bad as you were before–_

She stopped short. Fakir's shoulders had slumped. A single hand had curved into a fist by his side, his jaw was clenched, and he resolutely refused to look at her.

"I'm sorry," were his only two words. "I just – I lost it to Kraehe." She did not have to ask him what he was talking about.

Instead of anger, she could only stare at him, horror struck. But when he sank onto the floor she didn't have the heart to even peck at his toes. Instead, she patted his bare ankle with a wing, before quietly leaving from the bathroom.

"Ahiru?" he called, after a long silence. "Where are you going?"

She did not deign to quack back.

* * *

Rue stared at the pendant with increasing frustration. It lay innocently in her palm, dull and ordinary, not quite dark enough to be striking, and not light enough to be pretty. It looked like an unpolished garnet, and felt cold to the touch.

Whatever its secrets were, it wasn't giving her any hint. She narrowed her eyes, dangling it above her as she lay on the bed. If anything, it looked, ironically enough, like one of the heart shards of the prince.

Clearly the stone was keyed to Princess Tutu's powers. She could – she could destroy it. Father would never know that she did it. He would never know; and if it meant Mytho would love her and her alone **(you'd give up your father's freedom for that, would you, you naughty little thing)** it was worth any price.

With a wrench, she summoned a burst of dark raven-fire, crackling cold and tainted purple around her palm, more acid than fire, more taint than destruction, and brushed a single finger over the stone. The iron chain (no doubt Fakir's, not Tutu's) rusted, broke, burnt away into metallic grit and cinders.

However, the gem remained untouched. If anything, it had become more beautiful, pearly in its gleam next to the raven-fire, and for the briefest moment, as though a trick of the fire-light, the shimmer of golden wings appeared briefly, a burnished butterfly in a blazing cocoon.

The pendant fell onto her lap, chain disintegrated. She commanded the fire back to her blood, and with an incoherent scream, lobbed it violently. The mirror broke beneath her throw, and she stared into jagged cracks; the face that stared back no longer prim and proper, but wild-haired and red eyed, all pale skin and dark shadows beneath her eyes and the jagged lines of the cracked mirror.

Even if Tutu died – even if she conquered Tutu in every way, shape or form, there was one thing she could never break. Tutu was pure, untouchable, _(not a raven)_ untainted, shaped not of hard, unyielding diamond, but the soft swan curves of white-pink pearl. Even if Kraehe broke her – not that she could – over and over, the shards that remained would be as pure as they once were. And Kraehe herself would be all the more ugly and twisted in her victory.

What did she truly have – what chance did she possess against the mere memory of her rival? She'd won the battle against the Knight, but she was bereft of hope against Tutu. The pendant was proof of that – even now it lay untouched by her efforts.

Her only hope – her only hope – she continued staring at the mirror, at her haunted pale features and the despair written into every line of her body. She'd pinned all of her hopes onto the Prince whom could love even an ugly crow like her so she had nothing left –

Something red hovered before her, and she shielded her face from the light that flooded her sight.

"Do not despair," said a soft, vaguely comforting voice. She opened her eyes and she saw Mytho where the pendant had been. Her throat knotted; his presence emanated comfort. She felt ghostly fingers cup her cheek, stroke her hair.

"Who –who are you?" she whispered, drawing back against the bed in fear.

"I am the heart shard of hope," said the spectre of Mytho, warm and gentle. "I am the emotion that dreams of something better, the need for what could be and what should be. I am the Seeker of my brethren, of the Defeat of the Raven and of the End of this Tale."

"You're the pendant," she whispered, sudden understanding flooding her. "You're Tutu's." _Not mine. Never mine._

"I am the Prince's desire to regain his heart," said the shard, softly. "I belong to nothing but the heart from which I originate."

"You're the source of her power," said Rue, unable to prevent the tones of accusation that crept into her tone. "You were the one that started this." The reason the story had started again. The reason Mytho had drifted away. Her voice grew to a piercing screech. "Why?" And then, unbidden, the second question that had lain just beneath the skin, itching. "Why her? Why Tutu? Why Ahiru?"

The shard turned to her, slow and somehow sad despite the sense of warmth it projected – because underneath the happy surface there was an ever-present longing that stirred within her.

"Dance with me," whispered the shard, stepping off of her bed, and whirling his hands above his head.

The shard of hope twirled, but instead of Mytho's technical blank perfection, there was purpose written in the lines of his form, of his raised arabesque leg bent in attitude, his arms reaching from fifth position to offer her a hand.

Even if he was responsible for her loss of love, he was still a part of the Prince she loved, would always love. She took his hand, and stepped off the bed, legs sliding against silken purple sheets.

"Why do you suffer so?" asked the projection.

She was held close, but this Mytho eyed her not with the soft warmth-tinged-with-possessiveness of the shard of love, nor blank, emotionless eyes of heartless-Mytho, nor the tentative affection she'd seen when he'd regained the first few pieces of his heart. He looked at her kindly, but it was a kindness borne of pity that he saw there.

It rankled, stung, digging into the raw places of her heart and self. She was not something to be pitied –never never never.

"Shouldn't you know already who I am and why I suffer?" she shot back. Kraehe pursed her lips, folded her arms, and waited. Her school shoes, kicked off in frustration, lay on their sides by the bed. "You were there for all of it."

Every single time Princess Tutu had been there to restore a peace of Mytho's heart, every single time Tutu had seen her, both as the girl, and as the raven, this part of Mytho had been there, watching.

"I was not aware of my surroundings," said the shard quietly. "Similar to the other shards, I am unable to affect the world except through the conduit of another. I cannot truly affect the world, for I am merely a projection of an emotion."

"Oh?" Kraehe pulled away from the projection, but it was insistent in holding her, in encircling its arms around her. _If it were Mytho in the flesh, you would not have resisted at all, _said a voice within her. _Is this not also a part of the prince you love?_

"You still haven't answered my question," Kraehe murmured, softer now, gentler now, worn down beneath the persuasion of his voice, the red carpet soft beneath her bare feet. "Why choose her?"

The shard sighed, but instead of the brush of air against her cheek there was only sound. "Do you truly want to know?"

"I would not ask if I did not," said Kraehe. The thin light slanting through the curtains cast purple-red shadows in her richly coloured room, a beam that pooled light between her and the Prince's feet.

"There are two things Princess Tutu has to be," said the shard. "The first is that she needs is to embody the emotion of hope." She could feel his gaze, gentle and yet unrelenting on her own.

"I – I don't understand," said Kraehe stumbling back, hissing in pain as her back hit the window.

"A heart shard chooses to reside in a place where the emotion it bears is strongest." Kraehe pulled her wrists away from the grip of the heart-shard, and this time, he did not resist. "You may remember the woman Paulamoni, whom once danced for you in this town. The heart-shard of fear chose to rest in her, because she herself strongly feared that she would never live up to the roles she danced."

Kraehe remembered; she remembered the ghost of Giselle, mourning and plaintive, with the heart-shard of sadness. She remembered the river, where people traversed the bridge and asked questions with no hope of an answer, and the heart-shard of curiosity had lingered. She remembered the gem which Mytho sought to give to Tutu out of love, and how his own love had resided there.

"And the second aspect is that Princess Tutu needs to abide by the will of the Prince, and the Prince alone; her role is thankless, yet essential." Not-Mytho turned away. Kraehe noted with some shame that her sheets were covered with metallic grit from the burned necklace. "For this, she has to love the prince, wholeheartedly and unreservedly. This is the most important quality she must bear."

"Did I not love you enough?" Kraehe burst out, tearing in anger and jealousy and failure at the seams. "Am I not good enough?"

"You would not enjoy the role," he said, "And nor are you suited to it. Princess Tutu is fated to forever hold this unrequited love, for when she speaks of it to the Prince, she will vanish into a speck of light. Would you be able to bear such a burden?"

She looked at him. Her next few words felt like they mattered more than they ought – nothing less than the truth would suffice.

"I would give anything, suffer anything, to have the Prince look at me the way he does Tutu." There was a cold certainty in her voice that she had never heard from her own lips before.

"I do not doubt that," he said. "But tell me, what if he did not look at you that way? What if, once his heart was fully restored, he chose another?"

She opened her mouth, then closed it again, unable to find an answer.

"Tutu needs to be able to abide by the Prince's will even if it goes against her own wants, needs, feelings or nature," said the shard. "You would not be able to do such a thing." There it was again. Pity.

If she could just swallow the hot lump in her throat, if she could just look at him without her eyes watering and burning, if she could just face him without showing weakness, she would slap him.

"Is i-it because I'm j-just a crow?" she asked, hating how her voice quivered, and the plaintive notes within it. She did not wait to hear the answer. "It is, isn't it? It's because I'm the R-raven's daughter so you'd never consider me–"

"It has nothing to do with what you are. You could even be a duck," said the heart-shard, "and you would be able to be Princess Tutu if you had the qualities necessary."

"A duck?" A bitter laugh issued from her mouth. "Don't mock me."

The transformation into her raven-feathered self was practically an unconscious action – but her hurling of blades at the projection was not.

"Don't talk to me that way. Don't you dare." She peppered him with blade after blade, slipping from between her fingers in motions that were not practiced, but fluid and accurate nevertheless. They flew through his form, slowed but not stopped, embedding themselves with a crunch on the other side of the wall. She didn't care – there was rage and frustration and most of all shame, bitter beneath her heart, coiled in her gut.

"Rue –" he stretched out one hand. "Please. I want to help you."

"I'm not Rue," she said, and some of her deadly-calm resurfaced. "I'm Kraehe, and you would do well to remember that." She panted from exertion, slumped against the wall, but her next few words did not quiver, not at all. "I'll take what I want, by force if need be."

He cast her a sad glance, and then faded back into a pendant on her dresser. She picked the shard up, and in spite of herself, cradled it in one hand.

She knew what she had to do. From one of her drawers, she removed a jar, filled with a liquid which beneath the light looked almost black. She swished it, to check that it hadn't yet gone dry, and then uncapped it. That proved difficult, as the liquid had clotted and crusted around the rim of the jar.

It smelled sharp and pungent, bitter and yet metallic. She tipped the liquid into a fancy glass bowl and dropped the pendant into it. It bobbed, like a boat desperately trying to stay afloat on a black sea, before it sank into the depths of the Raven's Blood.

She closed her eyes and turned away.

* * *

_I've forgotten how cold it is to sleep outside at night. _Ahiru had wandered around, and even attempted to enter the building which Rue – Kraehe slept in, but the doors had been securely shut. Not to mention the crows that cawed at her from the roof tops, eying her with beady red eyes and snapping their beaks half playfully, half threateningly at her.

She couldn't dance very well as a human, and could barely fly at all as a bird. She really was hopeless, wasn't she? It was almost enough to make her want to return to Charon's house, and Fakir and the warm bread, but no.

She wouldn't give up.

So she lay under the cover of a thick clump of weeds beneath a tall bush, waiting for the opportunity to get into the building, when the ravens were distracted and the door was open. Of course, she'd fallen asleep when straining her eyes in the darkness had become too tiresome.

_Looks like I'll be missing out on another day of class._

In her bleary state, she heard the click of a latch being lifted and the creak of a door swinging open. As she was jolted to full wakefulness, her eyes widened. This was her chance! She sped out from underneath the bush. A dark shadow of spread wings and the cawing of crows filled her ears. The door was closing and she had to get in –!

Heedless of all else, she crashed into a pair of legs, and let out a startled squawk, flapping her wings shock. She looked up and realised that she was standing beneath the bell of someone's skirt; this person thankfully wore ballet tights and a wine-red leotard underneath the uniform, so she didn't accidentally see some other girl's underwear.

"Hm? What's this?" She heard a familiar voice, and felt herself being picked up. Rue! She wriggled in panic. "A little duck like you shouldn't wander here. It's not safe."

She resisted her first instinct to snap at the other girl's fingers, and instead closed her eyes, and counted to ten to stifle her fear. Rue would put her down soon, right? And academy students didn't eat ducks that were just wandering around outside either so –

Rue turned to the crows perched on the roof edge. "Well, don't you have other things to do?" She was absentmindedly stroking the feathers on Ahiru's neck, in a motion that soothed her slightly, even as it tickled her, fingers brushing on her undercoat of down.

Ahiru surreptitiously glanced at Rue's neck. Unlike Fakir, she didn't seem to be actually wearing the necklace. That could only be a good thing. A few crows tilted their heads at Rue, and some flapped their wings in challenge. The crow that had been hunting her circled around to land neatly on the windowsill.

"I said begone!" Rue ordered, batting one hand as though to shoo away a pesky fly. The crows crouched and took flight in a hungry dark cloud.

Rue still held her though, the motion almost protective. Her hands were colder than Fakir's, her grip tighter and not quite as comfortable, but her skin was soft, almost silken, while Fakir's had been laced with calluses and faint scars.

Ahiru felt herself being set down on the ground again, and Rue turned red eyes on her. "Next time, you won't be so lucky," warned the dark-haired girl, her footsteps fading away.

Ahiru watched her go, a little more cheered than before. Rue was still Rue, then, even if she refused to admit it. After all, Kraehe would never step in to save a mere duck.

That didn't change the fact that the door was still closed. She made an irritated quacking noise. Now that the ravens were gone, though, she could try pushing the door open. She nudged it with her side, pushing desperately, but it was clear that she didn't have the strength to budge it even an inch.

She stopped in frustration, before spotting an open window on the same level as Rue's dormitory.

Scaling the walls was difficult, as she hopped from windowsill to windowsill, and clung to drainpipes. She finally managed to reach the roof, and carefully moved across to the open window, her stomach lurching when she tried not to think of the drop below.

With some success though, she made it inside. The bed was large, and the dresser was covered with envelopes of different sizes and shapes, all brightly coloured in shades of pink and red and yellow. An auburn-haired girl, having finished brushing her teeth, hoisted a side bag, already wearing ballet tights with her school uniform.

Ahiru scooted under a nearby table, watching as she brushed her hair, and discreetly trailed her as she left the room. Now where would Rue's room be?

It was difficult work, trying to open all the doors and figure out which room was Rue's, and if it was, where the pendant might just be hidden. It was even harder to try to flap up and twist the doorhandles with her wings.

_Well, this is the last room in this corridor,_ Ahiru thought, as she forced the door open. A glint of red caught her eye. _There!_

She spotted what was undoubtedly her pendant, though in the dim light of the room, it looked darker than usual. In triumph, she picked it up with her bill, and looked around nearby for a necklace, but the chain was long gone.

Perhaps it was just her, but the heart shard tasted kind of strange and bitter but it wasn't as though she'd tasted it before, so she dismissed the thought as she navigated her way down the stairs and out of the building.

Since everyone was in class, she managed to make it to the drinking fountain by the side of one of the dance hallways, but when she crouched stark naked beside it, she realised that she'd forgotten where her clothes might be and why didn't she think of this earlier?

She stood, clutching the warm pendant in her palm, feeling dizzy and weak. She should just head back to her room – if she could just make it back without being spotted she would be fine –

"Look! Pique!" said an awfully familiar gleeful voice in a stage-whisper that even she, could hear. "Ahiru has finally chosen to show up for class, but seems to have forgotten to put on her clothes this morning!"

Ahiru felt herself turn a bright, bright red, a flush starting on her neck, travelling up to stain her cheeks and travelling down so that her whole body was one crimson beacon. She choked on air, and dived into one of the nearby bushes.

Pique and Lilie had both just gone out of the hall take a break by the drinking fountain, and both were staring (the former aghast, the latter endlessly amused) at their friend.

"I was just – uhm, well, you see I woke up –" In Fakir's other house was _not _a good answer, "Somewhere really weird, and I didn't have any clothes and I tried to go back to my dorm but then I got lost and–"

"Ahiru's having a tryst!" cried Lilie cheerfully. "Oh, how scandalous!" Ahiru blinked in confusion. Tryst? Then again, since Lilie was saying it, it couldn't possibly be a good thing.

"Uh – what –" she was almost afraid to ask.

"Ahiru says she didn't even recognise the place," said Pique flatly, unimpressed, even as she looked mortified. Not nearly as much as Ahiru herself, of course, but she would be hard pressed to match Ahiru's current level of embarrassment. She was currently (futilely) trying to tug Lilie back into the classroom. "You should get back and put some clothes on. We'll meet you at lunch?"

Unfortunately, her rather feeble attempts at solving the situation were rendered naught by Lilie's continued stream of bordering-on-sadistic pleasure.

"So she must've gotten drunk and passed out, and then her lover, not knowing what to do, brought her to his home but then –" Lilie continued to spout, clearly in raptures as various increasingly unlikely sequences of events spun themselves into existence within her mind.

"Lover?" Ahiru nearly quacked, and clapped her hands over her mouth, accidentally capturing a stray leaf, which she hurriedly spat out. "What I –"

"Class is almost over – why are you girls dawdling like that?" A deep, hissing, feline voice cut in, as Mr Cat strode out from the dancehall. "If you continue being this flagrant of class rules, I will have you marry – Ahiru?" She tried to hunch further into the bush, but it was too late. The leaves itched at her skin, and she swore she could feel ants crawling over her toes.

Her, Pique, and Mr Cat all stood frozen, unsure of whom or where to look, while Lilie continued rambling on. "And then he gets so angry he kicks her out of his house, and doesn't even give her a shirt to wear –"

A hapless student wandering around the corner choked and froze at the sight of the four of them – a red-headed girl crouching naked in a bush with only leaves obscuring her form; a blonde-haired girl saying something about beauty of tragedy and the joy of lost love and the revelries of alcohol; a purple-haired girl pinching the bridge of her nose; and their feline teacher, whom looked bewildered, somewhat exasperated and overall uncertain of how to act.

That hapless student stopped and boggled at the sight, and was followed by other hapless students, whom also repeated the action, so that they formed a long chain of confusion and disbelief.

Ahiru, trying to salvage what was left of the situation, scooted out of the bush, one hand splayed over her nether region, and her other arm pressed over her chest. "Um, does anyone have clothes that I could – maybe – borrow?" Her eyes squinched shut in embarrassment.

A long silence followed. All she was asking for was a jacket so she didn't end up flashing everybody she passed – but any exasperation was overwhelmed by a growing wish that the ground would open up and swallow her until she got some underwear on.

She envied heartless-Mytho; at least when he went around without pants, he didn't suffer any consequences. In fact, everyone treated such an occurrence as normal, which it might have been, she realised in retrospect. Certainly he never seemed even remotely uncomfortable with the breeze blowing around his rear end.

"Here," she heard a soft voice, soothing in tone and wonderfully comforting caress her ears. A blue school jacket was draped over her shoulders, and she swiftly zipped it up and tugged it down so that it covered her butt.

She looked up and registered exactly who had given her the jacket and had spoken to her. Her heart was thrumming in her ears again, body filling with steadily rising panic from her toes to the top of her cowlick.

Her preservation instincts screamed at her to run, naked or not, but she was unable to stem the thought that she was wearing Mytho's jacket and it wouldn't exactly be polite to take it –

_Only someone as moronic as you,_ said an internal voice that sounded suspiciously like Fakir's, _would worry about stealing the jacket of someone who tried to steal their heart._

Seemingly oblivious to her inner turmoil, Mytho held out a hand. "Would you like me to walk you back to your room?"

* * *

The surrounding people alternately tittered and sighed in jealousy – but he was growing more used to such a reaction, and it would be useful to be held in such high esteem. Herd instinct also prevented any of them from intervening, despite their displeasure that he was choosing to favour someone in the beginner's class – and the worst student, no less.

It was child's play to guide her uncertain, but otherwise unresisting form away from where Fakir could potentially see. It would not do to have another repeat of that incident.

It was amusing, the way she flitted between concern for herself, and admittedly undeserved concern for him. It would not do to underestimate her again – even though it had been that meddling knight that had saved her, the fact that he had been able to intervene at all spoke volumes for Ahiru's spirit.

What had he done though? Fakir had made her vanish, and a girl didn't just vanish. Unless it was Princess Tutu – his incomplete heart lurched, just a little – and the story parameters ensured that Tutu's vanishing would be permanent.

So what was she, truly? Had Fakir called on some unforeseen power within himself? Had she managed to hide successfully in the timeframe from her revival and his notice of it? Or was she another player in the tale, another variable in the story, heretofore lying dormant and unawake?

"Mytho –" Ahiru looked at him, and pulled away. "I'll be going now," here, she hesitated, "I don't – I don't need your jacket."

It amused him that she was still clinging to decorum, in spite of all he had done to her. She shed the coat and all but threw it at his face – he winced as the zipper slashed across his palm. The sting was still a relatively new sensation or at least, the pain was. He'd always felt pain without truly registering its unpleasantness.

She folded her arms across her chest, as though daring him to comment on her lack of clothing, and hurried to leave.

Her figure was singularly unimpressive and girlish, and almost painfully thin, skin stretched across her ribcage and sharp jutting elbows, angular lines formed by her shoulders and neck and knobbly knees. But it wasn't the thinness of someone underfed – it looked gangly, as though she'd outgrown her own skin so that it pinched tight over her bones and compressed muscles and flesh together. As if she didn't even fit into her own body; as if her real shape was stretched over her human form.

"Running away?" he asked quietly, softly. "I thought you'd done that enough already. I have questions I wish to ask, Ahiru." He briefly considered trying to seduce her again, but dismissed it, quashing the undercurrents of relief within himself. She would only resist, he told himself, harder this time. It would be better to wait.

She stared back at him uncertainly, and he could see the flight instinct emblazoned across her face. But she steeled herself, gathering her courage, and faced him. "Was it true, what you said before?" she asked. "That the heart shard of love was what changed you into this?"

He inclined his head in the affirmative. "Should that matter to you?"

She turned down and away. He touched her shoulder – she flinched. "I should – I should go –" her voice cracked, as though on the verge of tears. He heard the sound of panting breath and running steps. Another intruder?

"Mytho!" he heard Kraehe call, voice strained. He let out a sigh of irritation. "Just let her be, and choose another target!"

Ahiru stepped back, forgetting to shield her chest with her arms. "Rue – Rue?"

Kraehe glanced at him, then at Ahiru, and her expression morphed a brief shock, then into disgust. "Of course Tu- you would resort to such tactics. I should have known." Her gaze lingered on the bare throat of Ahiru. "Not that you have much to flaunt, anyway."

Ahiru crossed one leg in front of the other, and glared up at the other girl. "Hey! If you hadn't taken my pendant, then I – I would have my clothes on, for one. And I'd rather not have my heart sacrificed to some great black evil bird, either!"

Mytho felt increasingly irritated, and beyond his depth, which was saying something. "Pendant?" Some of his old self resurfaced with his confusion, and his fingers laced together. His two hands squeezed each other, trembling, knuckles white. They both ignored him.

"I'm surprised how easily you managed to take it back," asked Kraehe, with a faux-sweetness. "Rummaging around my room were you?"

"Why did you take it?" said Ahiru plaintively, sounding genuinely hurt and disappointed, hands scrunching and unscrunching into half-formed fists. "It's not like you needed it –"

"I take what I want," said Kraehe, cutting mercilessly through half-formed sentiments of naivety. She strode closer to the other girl, and stroked one long nailed finger down her cheek. "And really, entrusting such a precious thing to a failed knight like Fakir? It was child's play to take it away from him."

"What did you do to him?" asked Ahiru, and strength, almost-but-not-quite-fury filled her voice, her words. Unbidden, Mytho thought that it rather suited her. She swallowed, and his eyes traced the curve of her neck; she forced her chin up at the taller girl, freckles moving in the light.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Kraehe smiled, sensual in her own careless way. She was only slightly more clad than Ahiru herself, for her dress was many things, but modest was definitely not one of them.

Ahiru stood on the balls of her feet and her eyes sparked with an anger that took his breath away; this skinny little girl filled with something that excited him, matched his own thrumming blood beneath his skin. She all but snarled and her hand lashed out with a vicious slap. He gaze briefly found a flash of bare nipples, puckered with cold and surrounded by gooseflesh.

A vague sense of unease filled him with those thoughts – the closest to embarrassment he would ever feel in his current state, almost as though he were being disrespectful.

"That's for hurting Fakir," said Ahiru, sounding colder than he'd ever heard her sound.

Kraehe stared at the girl, almost taken aback, before real anger bloomed. "You? You sham of a princess, and you dare treat me in such a way –"

"Not that this isn't fascinating, but Kraehe, you're interrupting a rather important conversation." Mytho felt the pleasantries slide smoothly off his tongue. "And I believe we've already discussed this. Whom I target is none of your concern." He laced his voice with a little more threat, as a reminder of what he had done, and what he could do.

Ahiru's eyes widened, and she took a few running steps. Mytho easily moved to seal off her escape; she'd trapped herself in the corner of the corridor.

"It's – it's not going to work, Mytho," she said, her voice surprisingly steady, false bravado in her voice. "You've tried – three times before, and it didn't work then. It won't work now. Please, just let me go."

Kraehe eyed the both of them. No doubt she would interrupt if he actually did try to steal Ahiru's heart, and her presence might just be enough to foil his hunt. Again.

_Move onto somebody else,_ urged a voice in him, and he did not know whether it was his as-of-yet-untainted-self, trying to distract him, or whether it was some culmination of now-tainted emotions that had built into frustration, seeking easier prey.

It was indeed maddening, he decided, but he was hardly going to give in now. That stung too close to defeat to bear.

"I just want to ask you a few questions," he said, instead, choosing to use the voice that soothed defenceless, helpless animals he had rescued in times gone past. He did not move closer, because that would startle her, like it startled the chicks that huddled in roof alcoves, too frightened to fly.

"Then ask," her voice was sharp again, and he did not know why her anger, her viciousness, aroused by her fear for herself and her protectiveness of others, appealed to him. Was it the light in her eyes, the new strength in her otherwise unremarkable figure?

"What significance do you have in the story?" he asked, and felt both Kraehe and Ahiru draw in a collective breath. "Why do you matter? Why are you here?"

And she did matter, he knew. Why else would she have the purest heart of them all? Why else would both the Knight and the Raven Princess be invested in her fate? How else had she been able to resist him within the tale?

Coincidences did not exist within stories; endless blind luck always possessed some other purpose.

His finally loosed his last question. "Who are you, really?"

Ahiru stared at him, looking a little dumbfounded. In her left hand, her fingers gripped a dark red stone. The pendant she had been wearing when he tried to take her heart by the bridge, he realised with a sudden flash of insight. She gnawed and worried at her lower lip, shifting even more uncomfortably now, seemingly forgetting her state of (un)dress.

Kraehe gave a little sigh of irritation. "Well, the game is up, Tutu," she said, but her words did not fully disguise her own askance. "You might as well get on with it, because I'm not going to try saving you a second time."

"Third," he heard Ahiru whisper, almost to herself, low enough that he barely caught it.

"Why does everyone seem to insist that you're Princess Tutu?" he asked, lightly. "I suppose that would explain why Fakir acted the way he did, but he's not exactly the most grounded of people." Traces of mockery bled into his voice.

After all, Tutu, whenever she appeared, always cut a graceful, awe-inspiring figure. Her voice was sweet, her dance was beautiful yet powerful, and she radiated warmth and peace and hope and –

His longing was swiftly severed by the resurgence of Raven's Blood, and he swallowed.

But it seemed that Princess Tutu was his raven side's weakness, and the memory of her refused to leave. He remembered a pas de deux, long gone in a shadowed lake. When they danced, she had seemed to take flight in his hands, as though he was holding sunlight, and lifting her, supporting her had been effortless.

This clumsy girl as Tutu?

"Show him who you truly are," crooned Kraehe. "If you truly love him, you shouldn't have to fear showing him your true identity." She added, "At least you'll have clothes on."

Mytho felt an irrational fury build – how dare they desecrate the name of Tutu? The memory of the dance and the returning of his heart shards surged through him – if she were Tutu then she would have saved herself besides – don't believe them it's all a lie – hurry up and _vanish _– it couldn't possibly be–

Ahiru gave one pained glance at Kraehe, and then broke down. "It's my fault," she said through incoherent hiccups, "It's my fault – my fault – all my fault! The heart shard, if only I hadn't – and now you're both evil, you and Mytho and Fakir's right I should've never – the story – just a du–"

He barely comprehended her tangle of words, and ignored the part of him that still reached out in sympathy. "What are you two playing at?" he snarled. "If you think –"

The world burst with light.

Ahiru's head had been thrown back, her body arched. She was surrounded in a shroud of the purest of white light, but then it grew darker, redder, like blood spreading through water. She screamed in pain and Mytho could only stare at the transformation, in part horror-struck, in part strangely fascinated.

Eddies of red light pooled over her body, swirled around her feet. They formed red pointe shoes, ribbons growing vinelike over her bare legs. The bell of a wide skirt grew from the base up over her exposed rear end, the dress forming over her midriff and the small of her back. The only thing unaltered aspect was her cowlick, still sticking up from her mass of now sleek hair.

Red tinged the base of her skirt; dramatic lines of black highlighted her eyes. When she twirled her arms around her head, asking him to dance, there was a coquetting playfulness that amused him while Kraehe's possessiveness was cloying in comparison. Her ruby nails glittered against his skin as he accepted her hand.

His other hand drifted over her bare back, the soft curve of her spine. The edges of her dress ruffled feather-like against his skin. "Tutu," he breathed; she twirled in his arms, warm and sultry like a hot summer night.

"Tutu," repeated Kraehe, warily, crouching and narrowing her eyes at her rival. Then a slow smirk spread across her face. "You look different. I can't say it suits you, though."

She was dark too dark not right – it wiggled in the back of his mind, but even that faded because she was beautiful and captivating, and his heart was ensnared all over again. He could dance with her until the story spun itself into ribbons or taste her skin and the whorls of taint and innocence. For a moment, he wondered what her still-beating heart would taste like; how she would look if – when –she vanished.

The heart shard of love itched in his chest, and Tutu raised a single sharply cut brow at Kraehe, then, slowly, mockingly, she raised his arm to her lips, and slowly drew a pink tongue from the crook of his elbow, down to his wrist. She ended the movement, pressing her lips to the underside of his wrist and nipped at his pulse point. The movement - odd, yet strangely sensual, made his heart stutter, eyes widen, and sent a quiver of pleasure firing through the nerves of his arm.

Distantly, he noticed his quickening heartbeat.

"But you haven't asked what Mytho thinks yet," said Tutu, with a little moue. "How do I look, my dear Prince?" **(oh my, this is really getting interesting)**

_Beautiful. _His divided heart is in full agreement. From the smile on Princess Tutu's face, he had let the word slip unbidden from his mouth.

"He's not yours," Kraehe said with barely restrained anger, "Ahiru. Don't you have those annoying pests of friends, and a failed Knight to get back to?"

Tutu's eyes widened; her dress flickered over her now apparent décolletage, but then she covered her slip again with a little wave of her hand.

"I'll be seeing you around, my prince," she murmured into the shell of his ear, kissing his cheek with soft lips. "You might be his, but he is hardly yours, Princess Kraehe. Perhaps you've forgotten that little fact." She vanished in flight, leaving a scattering of black feathers in her wake.

Neither he nor Kraehe noticed one yellow feather lying scattered in the grass, a tiny speck of blood on the quill.


End file.
